


Kitten

by Garrae



Category: Castle
Genre: Ankle Cuffs, Anonymity, Collars, Dreams, F/M, Handcuffs, Impostor Syndrome, Leashes, Light Bondage, Light Dom/sub, Winter Kink Meme, bedroom submissive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-02
Updated: 2015-10-03
Packaged: 2018-03-04 23:57:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 44
Words: 146,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3097349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Garrae/pseuds/Garrae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is not a place where St Nicholas would distribute presents, though it might be where his demons let off steam. Danger abounds here: hot, heavy and welcome. This is a club where dreams can come true.<br/>Fill for the Winter Hiatus Kink Meme and an AU meeting.<br/>Castle belongs to ABC/Marlowe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Talking dirty

**9 January, 2009**

A dark-dressed man, big, broad, and giving off an intimidating aura of fury and frustration, is currently prowling a seedy side street for an unobtrusive, shadowy door to a dark, dangerous club.  It’s not a place he goes often, and it’s not a place he’d like it to be known that he has ever entered, but he’s been here just often enough that no-one will raise an eyebrow or officially recognise him.  Then again, there are a lot of men within these walls who wouldn’t want to be recognised.  A lot of women, too.

This is a club where dreams can come true.  If, that is, your dreams run to dominant men and submissive women.  If your dreams are otherwise, then there are sister clubs to which the doormen will happily direct you.

No chance, in this club, of non-consensuality.  The women who come here are looking for dominant males, but there are clear rules.  Ladies’ choice.  If she turns you down, you don’t argue, just look for another.  Safe words mandatory, and the games agreed.  Any breach, and you’ll be searching for your balls in the gutter.  The threat is not metaphorical, though it’s a long time since it’s needed to be executed.  This club exists for the pleasure of its visitors, and only _pleasure_ is permitted.

Tonight, Richard Castle, celebrity superstar writer and city Casanova, is tired of willing, pliant, pretty women with no spark of originality; of busty blondes who have all the appeal of an inflatable; of women who pretend brainlessness because they think it’s cute.  He’s tired of oily men who want to feed from his success, he’s tired of writer’s block and the pressure from his agent to come up with a new idea: the looming deadline of the publication of his final Storm novel moving ever closer to crushing him.

Tonight, he needs release, in a wholly primitive fashion.  His life isn’t under his control, right now.  And so he’s come here, to this dark entrance to a subterranean sea of dark desires, to find, for a night, a diversion which will provide him with the control that he needs.

He’s dressed in black: denim, t-shirt, soft leather jacket, one pocket slightly proud with the single item he’s brought.  Black seemed appropriate.  Shadowy clothing for a shadowy evening spent, he hopes, fulfilling his shadowy desires.  Still, he wants anonymity.  Silk masks are available, if desired, and tonight, as every other time, he does.  The deep January night is not sufficient to protect him, should there ever be a leak, nor is the gloomy, reddish light of the downstairs room where people gather to consider each other’s offerings.  The dance floor is the only area lit, and tonight it’s jumping.  Christmas has clearly worn off.  This is not a place where St Nicholas would distribute presents, though it might be where his demons let off steam.  Nothing too explicit, in this room – there are rooms for that, elsewhere in this building – but the scent of arousal and sex is heavy in the air: the aura of anticipation almost suffocating.  Danger abounds here: hot, heavy and welcome.

Castle leans on the bar with a whiskey and lets his eyes adjust to the gloom, roving over the contents of the dance floor and the ebb and flow of pairings.  He isn’t looking for the common submissive, who wants spanking or paddles and handcuffs as a compulsory minimum, and isn’t interested in much else.  He likes to exert his control through words, and then through denial or overload, depending on mood, with toys and handcuffs as an adjunct, and spanking a very optional extra.  He needs, very badly, to prove to himself that he still has control of his words; and then that his words still have power over others.

Sometime around the second whiskey, he becomes aware that there is one woman, also masked, who has, in the last hour, rejected every man who’s approached her.  Many have.  She’s dark-haired, slim, tall even without the five-inch black stilettos.  The buckled strap around each ankle hints at her kink.  The dress she’s wearing fits her figure to a T: plain, undecorated skirt cut diagonally from below her knee on the left to two inches below obscenity on the right; no back to speak of, only lacing.  It’s not clear if it’s black or crimson until she spins under the light and it becomes obvious that it’s dark blood-red silk.  Around her neck is only a thin blood-red ribbon, to match the dress.  Her hands and wrists are bare: no rings, no watch.  In fact, no jewellery at all.  She’s minimalist, unadorned.  He is instantly determined that she should be his, tonight.  She’s – different.  Wilder.  Taming this woman – though if she’s here, in this club, then taming’s her desire – is the only way in which he’ll tame his demons. 

He leaves the smoky whiskey on the bar and makes his way to the dance floor, slinking through the bodies in search of his prey, camouflaged in the round of men who are displaying too much skin in too tight shirts and pants.  He doesn’t need, or want, to do that.  As he approaches, another potential partner is brushed off.

He takes her hand, gently, raises it to his lips and kisses the palm with a swift flick of tongue.  This wild, fey dancer needs special handling, and though she’ll be looking for his dominance he doesn’t underestimate her dislike for arrogance.  She’s thrown back every man who’s tried to start with physical control.  She’s almost on his eye level, and even with the mask he can see her eyes glinting hazel, sparked with flecks of green and gold.  The ribbon – he’d thought – around her neck is in fact a thin crimson leather strip: a narrow collar, subtle enough that it would only be recognised by one who knows.  He knows.

“Who do you want to be?” he asks, deep baritone rumble that offers her the option, rather than immediate demand.  Demands can be made once they’ve agreed terms.

 “I’m Kat,” she husks: a sexy, breathy, silky voice that lays out a menu of sin and invites him to try it all.

“A cat, hmm?”  He shifts closer.  “I’m looking for a pet.”  His hand slips to her nape, running up into her hair and curling around the base of her skull, and when she curves very slightly against the pressure he’s exerting he knows they’ve reached an accommodation of views.  “What’s your safe word, kitten?”

“Siamese,” she purrs, and curves bonelessly against his body.

“How appropriate,” he murmurs.  “And you’re already wearing a collar.  I wouldn’t want my pet to get lost, though.  I think we’d better add a leash.”  He sees heat flare in her eyes.  “Like that thought, kitten?”  His hand drops to her right thigh, where the dress exposes it, and sketches a slow, sensual pattern, shifts away.  She mews, disappointedly, as he takes his hand away to reach into his pocket; but then her eyes flare again when he draws out a thin black leather lead.  “I think you’ll like this.”  He clips it on, and wraps the leather round his hand.

She’d sensed him slinking up close, had seen him leaning on the bar, sipping whiskey and exuding a particular form of dominance that she’d not found in anyone else tonight.  Tonight, she’s looking for oblivion: the chance to pretend she’s got no burdens or responsibilities and to do as she pleases.  It’s why she’s come here.  A safe haven: anonymity behind her mask, and oblivion.  Tonight, she’s looking for a man who’ll take total control, give the orders and expect her only to obey.  It’s her release from her demons, on this night of all nights, after the turning of the year.  She simply wants to submit, to the right man, who’ll make her forget in the scalding burn of desire and heat and the physical.  Then she can be her public alpha persona again.  This masked man twitches her instincts and the muscles deep within her in a way that no-one else in the club has done.

Dominant, but not unpleasantly arrogant.  He’s opened his account on the credit side, by asking how she wants to be known, and taking only her hand, and kissing it.  And so she gives him a name that’s not wholly a lie, and starts the game.  When his deep voice tells her he’s looking for a pet, lust spreads over her, dark molasses seduction pouring over her and pooling hotly in her mouth and between her legs, and she arches into his hard hand to receive the fingertip stroke at the base of her neck that a real kitten might receive.  When he clips on the leash she’s already soaked, hot and ready, the lust in his deep blue eyes equalled in her own.

“Now,” Castle purrs darkly.  “We both know the game.  I give the orders, you obey, or safe-word out.  If you use your safe-word, we stop that.”  She nods.  “So let’s begin, kitten.”  He leads her by the leash to a secluded corner and a soft couch. 

“Pets need training,” he points out, “so they know how to behave for their owners.  So that’s what I’m going to do.  House train you, to be my pet.”  She squirms, hot and wet and already desperately aroused.

“While we’re in this room, you don’t make a sound, unless I say you may.”  He smiles slowly.  “There’ll be time for noise later, when we’re alone.”  She wriggles sensually as his fingers dance over the bare skin of her leg, high on her thigh.  “You don’t come until I tell you that you may.  You don’t touch yourself anywhere on your body, unless I tell you to.  I’ll be in control of your actions and reactions, not you.   The only control you have is to make sure you don’t come without permission.  Everything else is mine.” 

His fingers move a little inward, a little higher.  His other hand, leash still wrapped around it, curves back around her neck, strong fingers holding her head in one position.  He takes her mouth roughly, and hears her breath catch with satisfaction, lifting his head to watch her eyes turn cloudy and pupils dilate.  When his hard fingertips find the soaked satin of her panties, he rubs over the fabric and sees her bite down on her lip so that she doesn’t let a noise escape.  His fingers slide the fabric over his prey, his prize, not touching her skin at all, and she squirms against him, so completely turned on by his words that his actions seem to be wholly secondary.

“You’re all wet, kitten.  Soaking.  You’ve made a mess of your panties already, and we’ve hardly started.”  She only just doesn’t whimper, in case he stops.  His words are wickedly erotic.  “You’ll need to go to the restroom, take them off, and come back.  I’ll take care of them.  You won’t be needing them.  While you’re with me, you won’t wear them.  Not ever.”  He draws a line through the centre of the offending item, and she gasps, but manages – just – not to moan, or whimper, or plead.  At least the short walk will let her come off the edge.  When she tries to stand, to obey him, though, she finds that he still has the leash firmly in his grasp.  She hasn’t been given permission to speak, so instead she touches his hand, and the leash.

“You may speak.” 

Her voice is low and desperate, full of desire and the building need to control her body.

“Please will you let go of the lead so I can go to the restroom?”  Her owner – for this one night – smirks.

“Let you off the leash?  But you’re not even partly trained yet.  You might get lost, or someone might run off with you.  I’ll walk you there.”  He stands, and pulls her up into him, letting her feel his arousal pressed hard between her legs.  She rolls against him, and for a brief moment he allows her to have the hot pressure where she wants it, before he leads her to the restroom.  She finds the looks of others, as they spot the thin leather joining them, to be almost as arousing as the leash itself, the statement of ownership and control that it makes showing her the purpose that she requires on this night.

She’s swift to obey his order and return, needing to be connected again by that thin line of leather, to hear the words and tone that tell her that on this life-changing date someone will tell her what to do, how to behave, who to be.  Someone’s pet, owned and cosseted and – she can pretend – loved.  It’s what she needs, tonight. 

Knowing that as she’s led back to the quiet corner, she’s naked beneath the provocative dress, open should his searching fingers choose to touch, sends her higher, hotter, more liquid.  He sits, but stops her.

“Stand there, kitten.  Feet apart.”  She complies.  Somehow, she feels exposed, though nothing is exposed.  He runs a hot, possessive gaze slowly up and down her.  “Now. Come forward.”  He tugs gently at her leash.  She realises that although the club is full, this corner is almost as private as the room that – she is already sure – they will be using later.  She slinks forward, as flexible as the cat he’s named her, following the shortening leash till she’s inches from his chest and her open stance is either side of his knees. 

“That’s right.  Legs open.  Stand straight.  Now, remember the rules.  No noise, no touching, no coming.”  His voice is velvet, over steel.  Its furry texture tickles down her spine and leaves a trail of sparks behind it.  There’s a tiny pause, while tension builds.  She can’t press her thighs together.  She’s not allowed to touch herself anywhere.  Her hands are balled into fists, hanging at her sides.  She licks dry lips, bites down.  Her breathing is already ragged, her chest jerking.  She knows her nipples are hard and visible through the thin silk of her dress.  Anticipation is winding tightly through her.

“You’re mine.  My pet.  My possession.  Mine to do with as I please.”  She locks her knees, as muscles clench around nothing.  “I could walk you around, on the leash, to show everyone that I own you.  Couldn’t I?”  She nods.  “You’re soaked under that dress.  Naked and hot and wet, and if I slipped a finger into you you’d be tight around it.  Wouldn’t you?”   She nods again.  “You’ll be my obedient little kitten, there for me to play with and pet.  Won’t you?”  Another nod.  She’s completely seduced, hypnotised by the pooling, thick desire in every word, the filthy fantasy that he’s weaving about them.  “You’ll know, all the time, that you’re naked below whatever you’re wearing, open to me whenever I choose to touch you.  I’ll decide whether to play with you or not, and you’ll be wet and hot and open all the time in case I do.”  Her knees wobble.  “Stand, kitten.  I didn’t tell you that you could sit.”  Darkness swirls in his voice.   “You won’t sit.  You’ll kneel, in front of me, clothed or naked as I tell you.” 

The picture is crystal-clear before her.  She’s impossibly wet, barely keeping her knees straight, the flutters of pre-orgasm constant between her legs, the soft folds there liquid and heat roiling off her.  Her teeth clenched in her lip are the only thing stopping her from whimpering mindlessly, mewing and begging him to give her release.  She’s desperately trying to think of anything to bring herself back from the edge over which his words are relentlessly driving her.  She knows this game.  She can’t win, because he’s going to force her to orgasm without his permission, and then he’ll punish her for it.  His words are too evocative, and his voice goes straight to her core.

“Do you like to kneel, kitten?  Do you like to have that soft, wet mouth filled?”  She barely manages to nod.  “Good,” he drawls, and in the dim light of the corner she sees  his eyes wholly black and hot through the slits of the mask.  “Just imagine yourself, naked, kneeling, in front of me, taking me in.”   She barely restrains a moan.  He pauses for a moment.  “No noise, kitten.  Disobedience will be  punished.”   She wobbles again.

“I haven’t told you how you’ll be punished for disobedience, have I?”  She shakes her head frantically.  Something about the treacle-softness of his tones tell her that it won’t be what she was expecting.  “Denial of treats is always a good training method.”  It takes a moment for that to register.  “Instead of taking me in, a gag, perhaps.  Or having to wait longer for permission to come.  Or wearing an appropriate training aid, to help you practice self-control.”  She’s almost out of her mind with desire and desperation.  “So you’ll be obedient, won’t you?”  She nods as frantically as she had shaken her head.  He hasn’t laid a finger on her since she took her panties off for him and he tugged her forward by the leash and yet one touch would send her shattering.  Her muscles are desperate for one thick finger to slide into her, give her something to clench and squeeze around.

“That’s a good kitten.”  He leans back on the couch, and smiles lazily, completely in control, wholly predatory.

“When I don’t want you naked, I’ll decide how I dress you.  Do you like to play dress-up?”  She nods, again.  “I like to play dress-up, with my possessions.”  He looks her slowly up and down, and she squirms and wriggles.  “I’ve already said, no panties.  Heels, like the ones you’re wearing.   Basques, I think, for you, and stockings.  If I take you out for a walk, a dress, that I’ll choose.  Never pants.  I want you to be aware that you’re not wearing panties every minute you’re with me, no matter where we are.  I want you to know that no matter what, I can reach you and touch you and make you scream for me.  I want you to know that you’re permanently naked and wet and mine.  Imagine, kitten, being taken for a walk, collar and leash on, heels and a pretty dress covering a tight-laced basque and stockings, no panties, and soaking wet because you won’t ever know if I’ll touch you or talk to you like this or just leave you to wonder and wait.  It’ll be up to me.”

She’s shaking with the effort of staying upright.  The evening is barely begun, she knows.  It’s only for an evening, but it’s going to be a hell of a night.

“Of course, if you’ve been disobedient, I might use the walk as a punishment.  How long can you hold on to your self-control, if I’m in control of you?  Imagine, kitten, that you’re” – he pauses significantly – “wearing a toy.  For as long as I decide you deserve to.  It adds a whole new level to your uncertainty about what I might do, doesn’t it?”  She can’t help it.  His words and his voice and his tone and calm assumption of total control plays into all of her filthiest, unspoken fantasies.  “By the time I took you home you’d be desperate, wouldn’t you?  You’d be begging me for relief.  But disobedience has to be punished, and pets have to be trained.  Just like now.”  

He runs a slow, heated look over her.   “If I touch you now, you’ll explode.  But I don’t even have to touch you, kitten.  Here you are, panties off, legs apart, mouth wet, hot and soaked and open to me and right on the edge of coming just like you have been since I put my leash on your collar.”  The reminder of her total surrender is the last straw, and the flutters turn to full-on climax.  He catches her as her knees give and the orgasm shatters her.


	2. Tainted Love

“You were disobedient, kitten.”  It’s what she hears as she resurfaces.  She’s cradled into him, being stroked and petted as if she truly were the pet he’s named her for the evening.  “I didn’t tell you that you could come, did I?”  She drags back the other rule, and shakes her head, looks up through her lashes, doe-eyed and innocent, wholly provocative.

“So what shall I do with you?”  His fingers trace over her cheek, and knot in her hair to hold her mouth for his searching, probing, possessive kiss.   He takes his time, his other hand skimming her hip, the leash falling between her breasts and across her legs.  “You’re my pet.  I can’t have you behaving like that in public.”  His hand draws a very definite pattern at the absolute limit of discretion, and then flickers, lightning-fast, through her soaked flesh.  She squirms under his fingers, instantly aroused again, and feels him hard against her.

Castle isn’t done with this kitten-Kat by any means.  She’s exactly what he needs, totally receptive and under the spell of his words: it’s been a while since he’s seen a woman fall apart like that because he only talked to her.  Then again, he doesn’t usually want to talk, because all his words spill on to the page.  For the first time in months he believes that he’ll write again.  In the meantime, he’s going to play this game of dominance and submission for the rest of the evening, and it’s going to be one hell of a night.

He takes hold of the leash and runs the soft end of the leather over the neckline of her dress.  “Stand up, kitten.”  She complies, but she’s not entirely steady on her needle thin stilettos.  He smiles sharply, darkly, to see it.  Something about having this woman – he doesn’t even know what she looks like, but he can tell enough that she’s likely pretty, and her body is scorchingly hot – on the end of his leash is frighteningly, deeply, darkly erotic.  “Time to take this elsewhere.” 

He leads her through the club to the private rooms, equipped with everything that could be required, soundproof and – in this case – unobserved.  (You can, of course, have observation too, if you want it.  Castle doesn’t.)

“We’re alone now, so you may speak, or make noise.  All other rules still apply.”  He loops the end of the leash over a hook, leaving her only a tiny amount of play in the strap, stands back and lets his blazing look flood over her.  “You were disobedient, weren’t you?”

“Yes,” she falters.  He pins her with his hard look, and raises an eyebrow.  “Sir?”

“That’s better, kitten.  A pet should respect her owner. ”  He takes a step forward, and slides his finger where he’d stroked the leash across her neckline.  His voice is softly dangerous, insinuating and sinful.  He watches her bite her lip, slip the tip of her tongue over it to soothe it.  He places the same finger on her red mouth.  “Open.  Suck.”  She complies, whimpers softly when he withdraws the digit, mewls when he draws it over the line of her dress, high on her right leg, moans when he slips it over the satin-soft skin of her inner thigh.

“Please…” she whispers.

“No.”  And the touch is withdrawn.  She tries to arch after it, but the shortened leash won’t allow it. “You disobeyed,” he notes again.  “You came without my permission, didn’t you?”

“Yes…Sir.”

“You couldn’t control yourself, could you?”

“No, sir.”

“You need more training, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”  She’s already mewing again.  His simple words are winding her up and up, from the promise in their delivery, the expression on his face and the soft command in his voice.

He prowls back to her, looming, broad and dangerous, loosens the leash slightly and turns her to face the wall.  His firm hands skate over her back; mould the curve of her rear; glide back up to unclip the hook at the top of her dress; loosen the laces.  The silk swishes to the floor. 

“Turn around.”  There’s just enough slack on the leash to do so.  She stands almost naked in front of him, nipples proud, a sheen of sweat across her collarbones, a slick glistening faintly visible at the juncture of her thighs, blazing desire in her eyes beneath the silk mask.  “Pretty,” he drawls.  In truth, she’s stunning.  “My pretty little kitten.”  He notices the flex of muscle in her thighs.  “Feet apart.”  He steps away, sits in an old-fashioned leather armchair, waiting for a moment, simply looking, and appreciating.  “You don’t know what I might do now.  There you are, naked, pinned like a portrait on the wall, completely at my disposal.  You’re desperate for me to touch you, aren’t you?”  She nods.  “Words, kitten.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ask nicely.”

“Please touch me, sir.”  She’s so deeply into this game: more than ever before.  She’d not have believed that words and tiny, unfulfilling touches could promise so much.  “Please,” she pleads.

“If I were to touch you, though, you’d disobey again,” he says, reasonably.  “If I stroked your breasts, rolled your nipples, you’d come in an instant.”  She shifts restlessly, constrained by the limits of the leash, feeling the restriction.  Her hands flex at her sides.  “Uh-uh.  No touching.”  Suddenly he’s by her, unhooking the leash.  “I think you need help not touching.  Kneel.”  She can’t suppress the moan.  She can see his outline bulging in his denims.  “Is it like you imagined, kitten?  Kneeling naked at my feet, wholly obedient?  Tell me what you want to do.”

“I want…I want…”

“If you don’t tell me, you don’t get anything.”  No-one’s ever made her openly complicit in satisfying her own need – on this one night, never any other time – for another’s control.  No-one’s ever used words to make her come, and then made her use words to submit to their desire.  Words are not her specialty.  But being forced to articulate her own submission is terrifyingly, darkly, shamingly erotic: the shame only increasing her heat and arousal.

“I want to taste you.”  He waits, doing nothing.  “I want to take you out of your pants and fill my mouth with you.”  He still says nothing.  “Please, I want you.”

“Nearly right.  You have to ask nicely.  It’s not about what you want, is it?  It’s about what I choose you to have.  You have to ask.”

“Please may I taste you?”  He smiles, lazily, returns to the armchair, tugging on the leash so that she follows, sits down.  She kneels by him.

“You don’t deserve to,” he says conversationally.  “You don’t deserve a treat.”  She whimpers, disappointed.  “But we’ve only begun your training” – she shudders as the word hits straight between her legs – “and a little indulgence now will make you more receptive later.”  His lazy smile washes over her, a little brighter.  “Go ahead, kitten.”

She’s careful, delicate, as she opens his pants, strokes him and releases him.  She’s sure she’s pleasing him, but then…

“Stop,” he orders.  She looks up from him.  “You were disobedient earlier.  I don’t think you can be trusted to obey without some assistance.  You were touching yourself, weren’t you?”

“No,” she denies.  “No, I wasn’t.”  He takes her hands and lifts them to his face, examines them.

“Sit up.  Hands behind your back.”  She knows what will come.  She straightens.  He dangles the cuffs in front of her face.  Soft leather, a short chain between them.  She’s floodingly wet at the sight.  “We’ll just make sure of that.”  He traps her wrists within the restraints, and stops her again when she tries to lean forward.  “No.  Not yet.”  His voice drops to a dark intimacy, and she knows he’s going to bind her further, not with chains but with words.

“This is one way I like to keep my pet, when I’m at home.  Naked and wet and kneeling.  This time, it’s only handcuffs, and the leash.  Sometimes, it’ll be more formal.  A chain from your collar – you’ll always have a collar: one that no-one but us will know about when we go out; one that makes your status clear at home; but a pet always has to have a collar on, doesn’t she?”

“Yes,” she breathes.  His silence expects more.  “I’d always wear a collar.” 

“A chain from your collar,” he repeats, “down to the wrist cuffs, linked to them, looped through between your legs, running up between your breasts, back to the collar again, just tight enough that you always know it’s there, pressing very gently so that you always want more, even if you’re perfectly still, rubbing if your hands move at all.”  She squirms, frantically, feeling the chain that isn’t there rubbing on her.  “If you’ve been disobedient, I might use it to ensure that your punishment can’t be avoided.”  She takes the implication without effort, and squirms again, struggling desperately not to fall over the edge.  How does this stranger know her deepest, darkest, best-hidden dreams?  She moans.  “If you’ve been especially naughty, the wrist cuffs would be linked to your ankle cuffs.  You’d have to kneel, wrists and ankles tethered, a toy tormenting you, cuffed and chained and naked and soaked and screaming and desperate.” 

“Please don’t, please stop, please I can’t,” she begs.  Her imagination is too vivid, and she’s lost in the imaginary sensations.

“I’d be in charge.  Your body, totally under my control, keeping you right there on the edge, dropping you back, only to push you higher.  All night, kitten.  All mine, all night, all day, or longer.  Keeping you on the edge for days, perhaps.”  

But it’s only this one night.  Tomorrow, she’ll be herself again, and this will only have been a dream.  He’s stopped talking.  She drops back, just slightly.  She’s hopelessly wet, again, her inner muscles fluttering around nothing.  He pulls the leash, gently – for a wholly dominant man, he hasn’t used any physical strength to control her, only her susceptibility to those dark, erotic, wicked words and wholly inadequate touches, and her own desire to be owned.

“Good,” he congratulates.  “That time, you managed to control yourself.  You may have your treat.”  He pulls again, and she leans forward and opens her lips over him to taste him, taking him in, pleasing herself while pleasuring him.  She licks and flicks and glides over him, mimicking the motion of her real desire, teasing and tantalising and tasting and taking him deeper until the hot wash of his release fills her mouth as his hands grip in her hair, the leash fallen unnoticed, and she’s fractions from the edge again, but he hasn’t said she may and she can’t do anything about it for herself.

He leans forward and releases one wrist. She lets him go, reluctantly, tucks him away at his gesture, stays obediently kneeling.  “There.  You’re learning control fast, kitten.  You’ll be a perfect pet.”  He brings her to standing, and picks up the end of the leash again, twirls it meditatively.  She’s a miracle: the way she reacts to only the words, the spell that the words – that _he_ – weaves.  It’s – _she’s_ – exactly what he needs.  He draws the flexible leather over the centre of her cleavage.  She’s whimpering, again, still close, still shivering on the edge just because of him, his control over her imagination.  Time for another round, and more.  The night is not yet over. 

He leads her to the bed.  “Lie down on your front.”  He knows what she’s thinking.  It’s obvious, isn’t it, what comes next?  “Arms above your head.”  He slips the chain of the cuffs over the hook and re-pinions her wrists, ensures that the pillow is comfortably below her cheek, the leash lying over her back and dropping to one side.  He moves down, spreads her legs, attaches each ankle by a short cuff to the waiting rings.  He stands at the end of the bed and admires the picture he’s made: his pet, the leash against her reminding her to whom she belongs, tonight; soft-skinned, naked to his gaze, swollen and wet and open for him, ready for anything he chooses to do with her.  He knows what she expects, the tiny tensions in her gluteal muscles, a hint of fright joining the lust in her eyes, but she’s not safe-worded out, so it wouldn’t be a showstopper.

“You came without permission.  I let you have a treat, but now it’s time to pay for your disobedience.”  She writhes, and he slides a pillow under her stomach so that she can’t rub against the sheets.  She mewls, pleadingly, trying to curve into his hands, but there’s no give in her bonds.  He returns to standing at the foot of the bed.

“You’re completely at my mercy.  You can’t move, you can’t help yourself, all you can do is wait.  I can do anything I please.”  His tone turns darker.  “Your pretty ass is right there, soft pale skin, completely unmarked.”  She quivers.  “It’s very tempting.”  He sits on the bed by her thigh, looking at her face.  She’s wholly focused on his words.  “The colour would bleed across it, following the heat.”  He lays his palm on the curve, and pauses. 

“You think you know what your punishment is.  You’re imagining it, the slap and the sting and the fire.  But that’s too easy.  I told you earlier, denial of treats.  You need to be taught to control yourself.  So I’m going to teach you.  _My_ pet needs to be house-trained.”  He strokes over her taut ass.  “I’ll tell you when you can come.”  His hand moves up and down, curve of her back to top of her thigh, stroking softly.  “Imagine, pet.  You’ve been disobedient, and you know it.  And now you’re waiting to find out how you’ll be punished.  You know that I will.  You’re wet just thinking about it, because you know that you’ll enjoy it, even while you’re begging me to stop.  This time, you’re going to be spread open.  Held apart, so that I can see every small reaction.”  She’s making little formless noises, but he doesn’t stop or change the smooth flow of hand or word.

“I might touch you, like this.”  The smooth stroke slips down between her legs, so lightly she barely feels it before it’s gone.  She can’t arch into it, though the heat it leaves behind floods her.  “Or like this,” and it takes the opposite path.  Then it’s gone, and the smooth strokes return.  “I might stop altogether, and leave you alone to contemplate the results of disobedience, not knowing when I’d return.  Anticipation is a very powerful force, kitten.”  He can feel the shivers running through her.  “Or I might do this.”  He slips a finger into her and she cries out.  “Remember, you’re not allowed to come.”  He withdraws it.  She’s panting, flushed, trying to move. 

She knows the game, she knows she needs to keep her head, but the seduction of his touch after the seduction of his words is skimming away the layers of her control.  His finger enters her again, then another joins it, pressing and curling until she’s so close and begging and she needs it so badly but it’s gone.  He’s playing her body, hands and mouth and tongue, and there’s nothing she can do but react to whatever he does, until she’s sweat-soaked and pleading with him, hot and wet and desperate, wholly and completely his.  She’ll admit anything, submit to everything, do whatever he commands: let him own her and be his pet just so long as this night lasts.

He’s talking again.

“I could stop now.  Untie you and put your dress back on and take you back out on the leash: make you wait and wonder.  Couldn’t I?”  The thought that he might stop makes her whine, and he’s taken her up to the edge and stopped so many times and she can’t stand it anymore.

“Please don’t.  Please.”

“Do you think you’ve learned your lesson, kitten?”

“Yes.  _Please_ , no more.  I’ll be good.  _Please_.”

“Please what?  Tell me what you want.”

“I want to come.   Please, I want to come.”

“You want?  Who decides what you get?”

“You do.”  He nods, smiling, and traces fingers over her some more, till she’s moaning again.

“That’s right, I do.  You like it like that, don’t you?  You like that I’ll decide.” 

“Yes.  Please?”  His fingers slide and twist and play, and she’s wordless again, desperate, heading full speed for the edge.

“Tell me what you are.”

“Yours – _ohhh please_ – your pet.”

“What does that mean?”

“You decide.  Only you – _please I can’t please not more_.”  She trembles right on the edge before he stops.

“That’s right.  My kitten, properly trained.  My pet, obedient and collared, on my leash.”  He undoes her, turns her on to her back for the first time, re-fastens her hands, but not her ankles.  “Wherever we are, you’ll be mine.”  He’s finally naked himself, rolls on a condom, settles in the vee of her legs, placed perfectly.   He leans over her on his elbows.  “What do you want, kitten?”

“You.  I just want you, please, now,” she pleads, needing release, desperate for the size and bulk of his body within her, the final possession to complete her surrender, give her everything she needs on this one night.

He kisses her hard, rough, hands holding her face for his invasion, feeling her move and writhe against him, swallowing the moans, the pleas, sliding tantalisingly against her slick heat.

“Please,” she cries, “please, I need you in me, please let me come.”

“Now, come for me, now!” and he thrusts home and she’s shattered before he’s moved again, totally his, her body obedient to his control, everything he needed and wanted as he comes himself.  He’s enough consciousness left to undo the cuffs, to free her to curl into his body and be held close, petted and cossetted and made very, very happy.

He brings her to screaming, desperately begging for his body within her, twice more before exhaustion overcomes them, talks her up and up and only allows her permission to come at the last possible moment, describes how he’ll keep her, makes her describe how she’d feel as he owns her, how she is feeling, what she wants.  She needs to be complicit, accomplice in her own surrender: and she is, wholly complicit, drowning in his words.

When he wakes she’s already left, the panties gone from his pocket, the leash lying untethered across the pillow.  It was a one-time thing, a dream, a fantasy.  She could have been a faery, or a phantom, for all the trace that’s left.  Anonymity is always guaranteed.  He’s never regretted it, before.

* * *

 

Three months later, he’s hauled out his own party by the most alpha woman he’s ever encountered in his life, thrown into an interrogation room and cross-questioned aggressively.  Ms Angry-Dominant-Cop here has clearly never made a concession in her whole entire existence.  She’s scorchingly hot, though.  He examines her face – and abruptly realises that he recognises those eyes.  He doesn’t say a word about it.  Not until the case is all over and she’s about to leave, rejecting his dinner invitation and turning away from his light flirtation.

“You have no idea,” she smirks, and starts to turn away.

“Oh, I think I do,” he murmurs.  The speed of her spin back gives him whiplash.  “Kitten.”


	3. A Pale Horse

She’s sheet white. It’s an overused cliché, but this time it is absolutely true. He’s never seen that expression on anyone, ever. She looks like he imagines a wrongly convicted person might, just as they’re led to the chair: a ghastly realisation that there’s no reprieve, no salvation. _But she enjoyed it_ , he thinks, desperately trying to cover his conviction that he’s just made a terrible mistake. _She enjoyed it and I want her back_. But there’s no flaring lust in her eyes, no wholly sated satisfaction, none of the sensual, sexual submission to his words and actions and the knowledge that they’re both wholly comfortable within the scene, none of the blazing desire and the pleasure and the connection of the words.

She looks like Death had kissed her.

He doesn’t get it. She’d _enjoyed_ it. She’d wanted it and he’d given her it and she’d _enjoyed_ every last instant of the single night they’d had. And now through some completely implausible coincidence, for which he’d be thrown out of the Mystery Writers’ Guild if he ever used it in his own fiction, he’s found her. (He’d gone back. Over and over, but he’d never seen her there on any night since and he’d never seen a single other woman for whom he’d had the slightest desire. He hasn’t seen a single woman _anywhere_ for whom he had the slightest desire since that one hot night until he’d recognised her eyes over the interrogation table.)

“No,” she whispers. “ _No_.” And she turns away and flees.

This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening. It was one anonymous night three months ago. How can he have recognised her? When – who cares when? She doesn’t want anyone to know about this aspect of her psyche. She never wanted to see him ever again. It was a one-time thing and it wasn’t supposed to be like this.

It was supposed to be anonymous. No-one was ever supposed to know. _How can this have happened?_ How had he recognised her when she – a trained detective – hadn’t recognised him?

But. But the case is over and he’s gone. She turned him down for dinner – that was lucky, because she’d very nearly accepted – and he won’t be back. He doesn’t know where she lives. She doesn’t have to take his calls. And he can’t get into the bullpen. _Stop panicking, Kate. It’s all over_. But she doesn’t.

She reaches her small apartment, her haven and her sanctuary tonight, still shocked and shaking, terrified bloodless by the implications of the last hour or so. The tympanic drum tattoo of _this can’t be happening_ is pounding in her head, jackhammering out any other thought.

She’d only wanted _one night_. One night, to lay down her burdens and fears and alpha status; one night where someone else would be wholly in charge and she need not be. _One night_. One frantic, fabulous, and above all _anonymous_ night.

It had been everything she needed; and, though she loathes this admission too, everything she wanted: the reality so very much better than her solitary fantasies. No fighting her corner, no resistance, no need to stand tall and straight and strong, no need to impose her own personality on anyone or anything. All she’d needed to do was listen, and obey, and be rewarded for it. It had been so very, very good.

But she hadn’t gone back. She hadn’t gone there again, hadn’t sought out a second occasion: had told herself that it was only a one-time thing that she would never need or want again. She’d struck lucky with her anonymous partner, who hadn’t noticed, hadn’t realised, or hadn’t cared that when it came right down to it she hadn’t had a clue how it was all supposed to go – except some general reading and the detailed, if impersonal, knowledge gained from her spell in Vice. But then, all she’d had to do was listen, and react.

 _A one-time thing_ , she repeats to herself, and ignores the prickling of her nerves and the rush of heat between her legs as she thinks of it. She won’t need it again. It was only that date, the ten-year anniversary. She doesn’t need the reality again: only the memory and her single toy, bought mail-order immediately afterwards and delivered in plain packaging to a drop-box address.

And yet… it had been so very, very good. Late, alone in her dark bedroom, she had heard the words over and over in her head, seen the man in the shifting shadows of her dreams. Nameless, faceless and commanding: and she had been less tight-strung, these last three months, than at any time in the three years before that.

Until it was all spoiled. Even if she’d wanted to – and she doesn’t, she _doesn’t_ – she’ll never be able to do it again, because she’s been _recognised_. It’s okay for Rick-sex-superstar-Castle, she thinks vitriolically: his reputation as a womanising playboy would only be enhanced. She, on the other hand – she would lose everything. All the respect she’s won, inch by clawing inch, would evaporate faster than ice on a griddle. Regard, respect, reputation – all she’s worked for, all gone, instantly.

And _Rick Castle_ , of all people, now holds the soap-bubble construct of her professional life in his careless, carefree hands.

But she’ll never have to see him again. Nor will she ever have to return to that club. No matter how much she wants to: no matter how much the need (but is it for the club or the man?) is clawing at the inside of her skin. It’s (or should that be _he’s_?) been an instant addiction: as powerful as heroin and as toxically hard to resist – but she has resisted; she will resist; she’ll keep going cold turkey and never ever do it again. Never ever need to do it again.

Truth is, she’s ashamed of it. Ashamed of herself, in fact: ashamed of wanting to submit to another; and more ashamed that she’d gone for an anonymous one night stand in a seedy club. And the worst shame of all is that she’d enjoyed it: from the moment he (no name. No name at all. She _won’t_ name him.) had kissed her hand and asked her who she wanted to be and then leashed her. It’s not who she is: she’s always in control. If asked, four months ago, she’d have denied any desire of any sort actually to give up control or give in to any person on earth. She could truthfully have said that she never had. Her solitary fantasies don’t – didn’t – count.

But now – ah, _now_ she has to admit to herself, squirming shame writhing in her gut – her fantasies had been more than a quick way to solo relief. She’d thought them during her plain-vanilla sex life, steering clear of anything beyond the so-called norm: a bit of oral – she had enjoyed that, both ways – a couple of different positions. It had been pleasant enough, but she’d faked her pleasure as often – perhaps more often – than not – and reverted to her imagination later. She’d never suggested trying out any of her fantasies: once or twice desire had almost overcome shame, and she’d hinted, but Will hadn’t picked it up and she’d never dared be more explicit.

And then, that one dark January night, it had all been too much. She’d been off duty. She’s always off duty, on that one day. Ten years: no progress, no answers, no support: no chance to pursue. Her father may be five years sober but that’s still ten years weak. She’s had to be strong, no matter what, no matter how much she needed support. She’s so very tired of being in charge of everything, except in the one thing that matters.

But, she thinks once more, she won’t be doing it again. It had been stupid and risky to the point of insanity. Trolling a D/S club for an anonymous one-night stand? What had she been _thinking_? She hadn’t been thinking, though; or at least not thinking straight. It had seemed that the options were that, or the view from the bridge – all the way down.

She knows that she’s all messed up – no-one knows it better. Normally, she manages it more effectively: keeps her life quiet, controlled and unemotional. That night, for the first time in nearly ten years, the extent of her messed-up personality had overcome control and she’d found herself deciding between two forms of insanity: two ways of giving up control. So she chose the less – permanent – variety, and hadn’t regretted her choice, shame or not, until it became obvious that Rick-sex-celebrity-Castle now has complete control over her life. At least permanence would have prevented this situation, and prevented all regrets.

 _What the hell is she thinking_? This is ridiculous: she’s talking herself into bleak depression. _Get a freaking grip, Kate_. There’s no mileage for a hotshot celebrity in screwing up an NYPD mid-ranked detective’s life. None. And anyway, she’ll never need to see him again. She’s told herself this already. No matter how much she enjoyed it, it was a one-time thing and it’s _done_.

* * *

It’s probably just as well that she can’t hear _Castle’s_ thoughts. Because Castle, having been able to indulge in his preferred form of dominance with an anonymous woman who’d been pretty precisely perfect (and who is even hotter now he knows her face) and who is perfectly secure in his sexual preferences and not in the least privately ashamed of _any_ aspect of that evening, is busily planning how to coax his kitten back to him. Cream and Pacific North-West sourced salmon are unlikely to work, and besides which, he’s still utterly dumbfounded by the depth of her terrified horror when compared with her total enjoyment of their single night together. He sits back in his comfortable chair with his feet on the desk, sips at a fortifying glass of Scotch and puts his sharp mind to work.

Being insatiably curious, and further being possessed of a considerable reluctance to – er – _fall short_ in any area of his life, Castle had rapidly identified the nature of his preference for more than occasional spells of dominance (not always. Sometimes he likes vanilla, too. But he is never, ever submissive.) and, as is his invariable method with any topic he wishes to understand in any context, had proceeded to research it exhaustively in theory but considerably less exhaustively in practice. He’d not met anyone with whom he was prepared to spend sufficient time for that – until he’d found his kitten-Kat who turned out to be ultra-alpha Detective Kate Beckett, a woman for whom the term _control-freak_ doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface and who clearly doesn’t consider herself to be anybody’s in any way at all.

He ponders, reminds himself of the general pathology of this byway of desire, and re-reads the relevant articles. His ability to speed-read and recall the main points comes in very handy at times like these. Ah yes. He _thought_ he’d remembered the sub-type. The total alpha who wants a break from the high-stress, high-performance life they lead. A rest, or respite, from the load they carry. That fits: in fact, that fits perfectly: the archetypal alpha-to-submissive. It had been called ‘bedroom submissive’ in one article, and he suspects very strongly that that fits perfectly too. Only in the bedroom, nowhere else at all.

Well, he can accommodate that quite happily, though it still doesn’t explain her horror at finding out she’d been unmasked. Okay, their games had been a little kinky, but it’s hardly up there with full-on S&M or (ugh) bestiality. He’ll just have to show her it’s a _good_ thing that they’ve met again: not something to be upset about.

And besides the sex, she inspires him. Over the previous three months, she’s inspired him to X-rated stories under a pseudonym, which have sold like hot cakes. (but only by download) They very carefully didn’t contain a single real-life detail. Since a week ago, though, it’s a whole new character, firmly grounded in uber-alpha Beckett: kickass, badass Nikki Heat, with no bent to submission at all. Nor will Nikki ever have. He doesn’t kiss and tell. Plenty of people would tell on him, though, which is why he had been masked. He may not be ashamed of his desires and kinks, but that doesn’t mean he wants them splattered all over Page Six.

He doesn’t know what mad impulse had goaded him to reveal himself to Beckett. Still, even on short – one week – acquaintance, her integrity – and fathoms-deep reserve – is unmistakable. She won’t kiss and tell either.

It doesn’t occur to him that she might not have the same faith in him.

And so, the pathology established, Castle begins to plan his tactics and strategy.

He has her cell number. That’s no help: he doubts she’ll take his calls. He has no idea where she lives, and no legitimate way to find out. (He’ll save illegitimate ways for when – or if – he needs it.) _But_ – he needs proximity to lure her back. _And_ – it occurs to him – he also needs to research the NYPD. Perfect.

He’ll be able to show her that she doesn’t need to be scared of any of it. Not incidentally, he’ll get a shot at – he hopes – a more stable fulfilment of his particular bent. He drifts off into the memory of how receptive she had been; how well-attuned to the game. It wasn’t only about the sex, that’s for sure. The aftercare had been equally enrapturing. Petting his kitten-Kat; holding her close beside him, had been very, very pleasurable too. He slips into a reverie of how it might feel to have her curled up and cuddlesome in his lap, sated and soothed and strokable: that soft pale skin under his hands again.

It takes him only as long as the few moments of a short conversation with the Mayor to arrange for access to the Twelfth. Castle doesn’t know why the Captain is so keen to have him there, but he really doesn’t much care. He’s got what he wants, for now.

Proximity.

* * *

Not that Beckett appreciates it. On finding him there to shadow her, and further discovering that she can neither leave him behind in the precinct nor dead in the gutter, she retreats into a hard shell of snark covering a thick layer of ice shot through with hard, cold anger. She won’t make conversation, and she makes it clear he isn’t welcome. He prowls along behind her, watching and waiting, absorbing her driving alpha focus and observing how much she expects of herself.

Everything, it seems. She’s there when he arrives – admittedly not early, but he has breakfast with Alexis, always, and then he likes to go to the gym – and she’s still there when he leaves. She isn’t interested in any social or personal chit-chat: wholly task-oriented. Success, or nothing. She never appears tired – frustrated if there’s no progress, irritated if a lead fails to pan out, but not tired – and she seems to live on caffeine and adrenaline, supplemented with occasional takeout.

It’s exactly what he had thought. Uber-alpha. He knows that he’s not often like that, except where his writing is concerned, when he needs to be fully in control. Otherwise, sometime bouts of temper notwithstanding, he’s pretty amiable, easy-going. He likes a joke, he likes to relax. He likes being dominant in the bedroom, sure, but – again, outside his writing, and he remembers that this began because he wasn’t able to write and wasn’t in control of that aspect of his life – it doesn’t mean he wants to be pack alpha any other time, as long as the real alpha is up to the job. Which Beckett more than surely is.

Still, she may not be tired, but she is wired. She’s strung tighter than the E string of a concert violin, tension resonating in the air around her. With each day – each hour – that he follows her the pitch of her stress is tuned higher. She doesn’t seem to have an outlet, or an off-switch: she never loses her cool or her composure, even at her most stressed. Irritated snark is as far as she goes, though sometimes her knuckles are white as she clenches her hands. She may be wound tight, but emotional – or any other – release doesn’t appear to happen.

It occurs to Castle, halfway through the case, that if Beckett is this wound up all the time, then the stunning, submissive kitten whom he’d met four months ago might have been something of an aberration. Not, he thinks, a one-off: she’d been too good at it for that, but certainly not a regular occurrence. Hmm.

He pursues that thought a little further. Mostly, he pursues it down a trail of how to make it less of an aberration and more of a regular recurrence, but occasionally he detours into a consideration of how long her rising tension can be contained in the magma chamber of her control before the volcano erupts.

It takes another day or two before the two thoughts come together, and he realises that if he’s right about the pathology, it means that if he can convince her to make it a regular thing, her rising tension should be released without explosion. Or at least – released in the right sort of explosion. The sort that lets her let go, and have respite.

But the case isn’t yet opening up, and nor is Beckett. It takes another two days before they catch any sort of a break, and then suddenly it all falls into place. Unfortunately, it falls into place with a very large knife and a suicidal nanny with a taste for homicide, and Beckett crouching beside her talking the girl down with the knife only inches from her neck. She’s as cool, calm and collected as she would be at her desk.

Until the nanny’s taken away. He’s partway out when he realises that Beckett isn’t behind him, or overtaking him, or ahead of him: her sharp heels are not clacking aggressively across the floor or the stairs. He turns back and can’t see her: retraces his steps and finds her leaning on the wall, hidden behind a door, breathing fast and shallowly and clearly hunting for her normal unemotional control.

He doesn’t think, he just reacts. Big hands land on her shoulders and his thumbs tip her chin up. He _knows_ what she needs, even if she doesn’t. The fingers of his left hand curl around to the back of her neck and stroke there in just the same way they had in the club, the fingertip petting he’d apply to a soft, small kitten: that he had applied to her.

“Breathe, Beckett.” It’s an order. He looks down into her eyes, and doesn’t lift his hands from her for an instant. The stroking presses into the base of her skull, harder now. She’s still supporting herself on the wall.

“You need to put it all down. You know how to.” She straightens, and comes off the wall. He steps back from her. “You know how,” he repeats. “Tonight. Nine o’clock.” He kisses her, hard and fast and rough, and doesn’t give her a chance to react to him before he’s stopped and moved completely away and let her lead them out. Neither of them speak, and Castle finds himself dropped at the end of Broome Street rather before he’s worked out whether that was a good or a bad idea. Well, he’d had it, and acted on it, and now he’d damn well better be ready to follow through.

Anonymity. That’s what she’ll need. Back to the black tee, black denim, black jacket. He’ll be masked. But this time, he’ll have something more in his pocket. He’d bought it straight after the first time, hoping that he’d find her again. It slides through his fingers, over and over, as if it were worry beads for the concerned dom.

He wonders if she’ll show up.

 


	4. Death comes softly

The word _fled_ is an unpleasantly accurate description of what she had done, Beckett thinks, as soon as she’d dropped Castle and been alone. She can’t believe that he’s suggested this. She hasn’t given him the slightest reason to think that she wants it, or him. She _hasn’t_. And yet his words are whispering inside her head and echoing round her skull.

All she can see is the girl cutting herself slowly and deliberately and the thick blood dripping: the knife mere inches from the fatal vein in her own neck: the knowledge that the first kill is always the hardest, and that once they’ve done it once, it’s very easy, and adds little to their punishment, to do it again. She’d battened down her own fears and emotions and _done her job_ , done what she had to do to save the girl: the potential for suicide or murder, or possibly both, heavy on the air around her; she’d had to kneel down to ensure that the nanny didn’t feel threatened, though it left her open to a single fatal slice. It’s what she does, who she is: it was the only action she could take.

But the nearness of her own mortality – the butcher knife had been right up close and the blood dripping was very personal – had come home to roost on her shoulder, Death whispering in her ear _not this time, Kate, but I’ll see you soon_ : and she’d had to take a moment to recover herself and try to regain her control. She had forgotten about her shadow, until he had appeared in front of her and gripped her shoulders and _been there_.

She’s back in the moment, slumped on the wall and crashing down the adrenaline cliff: stress building inside her and the demons yammering _what if you’d failed and she’d died too; what if you died_?: beginning to hyperventilate again. The room in which she imprisons her stress is already overcrowded: the constant knowledge that she’s not in control of her own reputation any more underlying her need to prove herself more strongly. She doesn’t have an outlet for this: the gym or running hasn’t worked any of these last weeks.

 _Breathe, Beckett_. The same commanding tone in which he’d said _let’s begin, kitten_. And then he’d told her she knew how to put it down. But she can’t do that again. She shouldn’t do it again: and she can’t do it face to face knowing who he is. Except it had _worked_. She’d given up and given in and she _wants_ that relief again in the same way that an addict wants their fix but then he’ll be able to ruin her life –

He can already ruin her life. It can’t get worse than that.

The memory of the nanny swims in front of her eyes again and she breathes faster, shallower – until she remembers his words: _you know how. Tonight. Nine o’clock_ : and even though she’d promised herself she would never do this again, his words draw her in and the note of command twines around her and entices her to believe that she will find respite. But still, she fights it as the clock hand sweeps around: seven, half-past, eight: but the picture and the smell of the laundry room and the blood so close and the gleam on the edge of the knife as it cut and _it could have been her_.

She needs it, if she’s to be able to function on the job. She needs something, because she’s perilously close to her own edge again, and she can’t afford to lose control. The view from the bridge is only ever black, and she is – she has to be – stronger than that.

She walks into her bedroom and opens the closet: searches for a dress. She never wears anything but pants, except that one night, but she’s already slipping into the mind-set. Do what someone else tells you; no need to think, no need to stress. It’s so easy, when you know the rules. Play the game. And the rules are very simple. Dresses, not pants. She bites her lip nervously. She’s not sure she can take the other step, but she needs so badly not to see the blood. All she needs to do is play the game. No-one else will ever know, and if she wears a mask – and she will – she can pretend it’s still anonymous and they have never met before and never will again.

She slips the dress over her head, a wrap over it, and walks out to catch a cab, feeling at once more exposed and more terrified than ever in her life, but at the same time strangely relieved. This is someone else’s game now, and she doesn’t have to think.

* * *

He recognises her instantly when she walks in, though her mask is already on. He couldn’t miss her in any crowd. He is, to say the least, surprised that she came at all, and that she did confirms his view that this is how she finds release. Still, there’s still an overlay of _Beckett_ , a lack of ease – and a flavouring of something that looks strangely like uncertainty: as if she isn’t sure what she’s doing here. Neither had been apparent, the previous time. He watches her approach, likewise masked.

Her neck is bare; a different dress: stark black as if she’s mourning, though it would be improper at any grave. It fits her like a skin: stops only just above the swell of her neat breasts and only just below mid-thigh. Black velvet, he thinks, and as she reaches him, begins.

“You forgot your collar, kitten.” She turns sharply, seemingly surprised by his proximity, though she must surely have known he would be here: it’s not as if he’d been subtle about his expectations. Her eyes have returned to the flaring heat that he’d seen that one single time before: no trace of the emerald hardness he sees every day. Her eyes are never soft, in the precinct: always angry, always cold. “It’s just as well I brought one for you.”  

He brings a thin choker from his pocket, a leash already attached. His kitten-Kat draws in a sharp breath, laced with arousal and need, hinting at darkness and dampness and heat. “This time you won’t be able to take it off. I’m the only one who has the key.” He slides it through his fingers, letting her see the delicate design: it’s constructed to look like a necklace; the small links under the rhinestones – and the tiny padlock at one end, where it would be hidden by her hair; holding the leash to the collar, the small loop for it to lock into at the other end.   There’s a noticeable pause, as she stares hotly at it, watches it as he raises it to her neck.

“Still _Siamese_ ,” she murmurs, and lifts her hair out of his way. When he closes the choker and clicks the padlock shut, it’s as if a switch in her mind has flipped: her posture softens and she curves very slightly towards him as he takes the leash in one hand and sets the other on her waist. Suddenly, instantly upon the collar closing, any last trace of _Beckett_ is wholly gone, the hint of uncertainty slips away, and all that remains is the submissive kitten who will shortly be wholly under the spell of his words.

“We’re going straight to a room, kitten. I want you all to myself.” He senses her shiver through his touch on her waist, and leads her, as he had the previous time, to one of the soundproofed, unobserved rooms. He doesn’t share. He certainly isn’t about to share _anything_ to do with this relationship, he vows, as he locks the door behind them, leaving the key in the lock.

“You ran away, kitten. You shouldn’t have done that. So this time, you can’t leave before I unlock your collar and let you go.” Not a single hint in word or tone implies that he knows who, and what, she is. He hasn’t let go of her leash since he put it on. “Besides which, I like you better when you’re wearing a collar that I’ve put on you. You know what it means, don’t you?” His voice is falling into the soft commanding dominance that, again, is soaking her through. No need to be in charge: just listen, obey, and give in. She nods.

“Use your words, kitten.   Tell me what it means.” He’s going to make her admit it all, again: make her accept her own submission to him. Through her own choices here she is, dressed to please him, and when he put the collar round her neck and locked it on it’s as if she’s entered another world: through the looking-glass into Wonderland, where none of this is real. She feels the wetness gather at the apex of her thighs and lets herself fall into the scene and her rising desire, fuelled by the pretence of anonymity.

“You own me,” she whispers, on a breath that sends sensuality through the air.

“That’s right. I own you. You don’t decide anything, I do. How you dress, how you look, how you stand or kneel” – she catches a breath – “or how you’re positioned. My choice, my decisions, my pet.” He stops for a beat, waiting for her response.

“Yes. Yours, sir.”

He smiles at her remembering her manners. “Good girl. It doesn’t make up for leaving without asking if you were permitted to go, though. That was naughty of you. Disobedient.” His tongue slithers over the word, and she mews softly. “You remember what happens if you’re disobedient?” It’s not really a question, but he clearly expects an answer.

“You” – she stutters to a halt. He waits expectantly. “You... punish me.” She looks, oddly, a little frightened, suddenly, below the raging lust in her eyes.

“That’s right.” His tone is a little darker, now. “Stand there, kitten. Feet wide apart. You left before we were done, so now you’ll have to wait while I decide what should be done.”

He seats himself so that she’s in full view. He hasn’t missed her small sigh of relief, and abruptly wonders if she actually knows as much about the reality of the game as he had thought. She’d looked a little frightened last time, when he’d made her think that he might spank her, but hadn’t safe-worded out: he’d thought it had been the normal tension that the thought of even pleasurable pain induces. She hasn’t safe-worded this time, either, but he now suspects that he needs to be very, very careful. If she’s not wholly familiar with the game, then he can’t rely on her knowing when she needs to stop. He’ll need to be alive to that: it’s no part of this, or any, scene to be in a place where she doesn’t know how to stop when she should. But the idea that she’s not particularly experienced in this and he’ll be the one to show her more is fiercely arousing.

“So, kitten. For now, you may speak. You’re to answer me, whatever I ask.” He smiles darkly. “Tell me the rules you have to follow.”

“No noise. No talking. Unless you say I may. No touching. No coming without your permission.” She stops. Castle raises an eyebrow.

“You forgot one, kitten.”   She squirms, and blushes.

“No panties. No pants.”

He smiles darkly. “That’s right. Always open for me. Are you wet, kitten? Are you open and ready and already desperate for me to touch you?” She nods. “Tell me. Use your words.”

“Yes,” she whispers.

“You’ve worn a dress. That’s good. You remembered that part of the rule.” His voice drops lower, into velvet command that strokes over her. “Did you remember the other part?”

She had. She’s naked beneath the minimalist black dress, and it’s blazingly erotic: sitting in the cab with her knees demurely together had only made her want this more. She’d been wholly conscious of the lack from the moment she stepped out of her bedroom tonight. But even before he’d collared her – ever since he’d told her that she knew how to put it down – she’d wanted to submit, to please him, to let obedience to another take the weight of her burdens from her: and to let it all bring her the relief and release she wants. When he allows her release – and the knowledge that it’s all up to him eases her further. But she’s ashamed of it, too, and shame brings a momentary tension, and silence.

“Kitten.” The note in his voice brings her eyes off the floor and to his face. “I asked you a question.”

For a moment he thinks she’s going to safe-word out. There’s a flicker across her face, a tightness in her shoulders: as if _Beckett_ is going to reappear and the kitten will disappear, like those old wooden Alpine weather-houses indicating rain or shine, where only one doll is out at a time, never both together. He’s sure she wouldn’t have tensed if they didn’t each know who the other was, notwithstanding that they’re both masked and pretending they’ve never met.

And then she lets go of it: the kitten takes over. “Yes,” she murmurs, and drops her eyes. Admitting her obedience soaks her further and allows her to forget everything except the sensations and sheer lust. He blinks once, the only indication of his astonishment, and stands slowly to prowl back to her, circling around her.

“That’s my good little kitten,” he drawls. His hands land on her shoulders, and pause there for long enough for her to look up into his face again. One hand moves to her neck, fingers running into her hair and holding her head in place. She can’t look away from his intent gaze. “Obedience deserves a reward.” He bends his head a fraction, barely needed when she’s in the heels, and takes her mouth hard; pulls her into him and makes it very clear that he’s much bigger and much stronger than she. She curves softly against him and surrenders to his kiss, to the hard muscle holding her still and pressing her in. Too soon, he lifts away.

“I want you to stay absolutely still, kitten. Feet a little wider, hands clasped behind your back.”   He drops his hands from her and steps away, opens a drawer and returns. She can’t see what he’s holding. The soft silk settles around her head and blindfolds her.   “Don’t move.” He moves away again, and then back behind her as he closes cuffs around her wrists. She makes a soft noise of need. His hands return to her shoulders, fingers firm on her skin. “You can’t see. You won’t move. You’re wet and naked under that teeny-tiny dress and you’re hoping that I’ll touch you. What will I find if I do touch you, kitten?”

“I want you.”

“That doesn’t answer the question. What will I find if I slip my fingers up from your knee, over your thigh, between your legs?”

“Nothing. Nothing in your way. Just like you told me to.” He raises eyebrows, clearly waiting for more. “No panties,” she gasps out. He’s still waiting. “Just me. Please?”

“Just you.” He doesn’t respond to her plea. “Tell me, kitten, how it felt to be naked all the way here, the fabric of your dress sliding over your bare skin, your thighs pressed together and against your hot, wet body?”

She wriggles as his voice and words sink into her skin, ordering her to confess her own need.

“Stay still. No movement.” His hands slide across her neckline. “Tell me how you felt.”

“I… exposed,” she blurts. She doesn’t mention the way in which she’d felt that this should be forbidden that had somehow added to her arousal.

“Good,” he purrs. “but no-one except you and me knows that you were. No-one but you and me knows that if I’d been there beside you I could have toyed with you all the way here. I could have touched you anywhere: run my fingers over and through and into you. I could have sat there beside you with an arm around you. We’d look like any dating couple, with your pretty necklace on and maybe the leash hidden under your wrap, tucked beneath your dress, or maybe not. Either way you’d know, wouldn’t you? You’d know that it wasn’t just a necklace.” His fingers trace its edge, and he runs the leash across and a little way down between her breasts.

“Yes, sir. I would.” She can imagine him doing it: holding her in, tucked in a firm arm, his other hand on her knee – and shifting higher – everyone who sees her neck thinking that she wears only a necklace. He’d said, before, _you’ll always have a collar: one that no-one but us will know about when we go out_ – and here it is, locked on. She shivers with outright lust at the implication. He can’t have got this in the short hours between closing the case and now: it’s a piece of specialised prettiness. He must have been planning this for some time. Or he had it lying around, of course. Either way, it implies that he knows exactly what he’s doing. As if she didn’t know that already.

 _Time out of time, Kat._ It’s another world, and tomorrow it won’t have happened. She sinks back into the deep waters, her momentary consciousness that this isn’t anonymous fading.

“Did it feel good to know that you were obedient?” he asks smoothly, dominance only implied. “Did it excite you, to do what you’d been told?”

“Yes,” she admits softly.

“Good,” he purrs again. He’s very delicately probing into what turns her on, finding out where her boundaries might be.   She’s moving again, trying to arch towards him, at his words. “Stay still. You don’t move till I tell you you may. You don’t come till I tell you you may.” The small mew she emits carries all her need. He goes back to the words.

“We’d look like any dating couple, you in the curve of my arm, going out for dinner. Maybe I’d played with you in the cab, maybe I’d whispered to you, maybe I’d simply done nothing and let you wind yourself up with anticipation. You’re wearing my collar, but only we know it.” It hits straight between her legs, riding on the words she’d already thought. She whimpers, and locks her knees, desperately motionless and hopelessly wet. “Only we know that I own you; that I’ve dressed you: silk underwear and stockings, but no panties. Never panties. From the outside, you look perfectly dressed for a smart restaurant; sexy but never slutty.”

His tone changes to the hard hot notes of possession. “ _My_ pet isn’t for sharing. I don’t want you – or others – thinking you’re something you’re not.” She’s sunk far too deep in the electrifying effect of his words to understand that statement. All her concentration is on staying still, not giving in to the desperate demand of her body to have release, to shatter into the orgasm that’s only fractions away – to obey.

“We’ll sit opposite each other. I won’t touch you, and you won’t touch me; except I might hold your hand, like any lover would, stroke it gently. But all the time, every moment and every glance, you’ll know that I know that you’re dressed to my order, that you’re wearing my collar and showing you know you’re mine, that you’re wet and naked under your dress and waiting for whatever I might choose to give you. You’ll know, and knowing that drives you higher, all the time we’re at dinner.”

 


	5. A pale lover

“Please,” she mewls. “Please.” He hasn’t touched her at all. He’s kissed her, and run a finger round her neckline, and only with that and his words, now if he touches her she’ll collapse.

“No. Not yet. You left without my permission.” His words are implacable, and though the tone is still soft the steel is palpable. “What do you get?”

“What you decide,” she says, voice betraying her desire for his decision.

“That’s right. What I decide, which includes deciding when – or if – you leave.”   His voice drops to a deep resonant rumble, poured into her willing ears. “If I don’t want you to go, you won’t. You won’t want to.” He smiles lazily, confident of her obedience. “You’ll want to stay with me.” She wobbles slightly, and his hands tighten around her shoulders, providing support.

“It’s our secret. No-one else knows, no-one else will ever know. You don’t need to do anything but obey; if there’s anything that’s too much you’ll use your safe-word.” He detects a very tiny easing at that, wholly unconscious, and puts that datum away for later, returning to his story.

“So dinner is over, and it’s time to go home: another cab, another journey where you don’t know what will happen. This time, though, once my arm is round you, now that it’s full dark and no-one can see: this time I’m going to tease you, play with you, and even if you didn’t know that you’re not allowed to make a noise you wouldn’t dare, in case the driver suspected. You’ll have to be quiet, kitten. No purring, no mewing, no noise at all, while I slide my fingers over your knee, up to the lace at the top of your old-fashioned stockings, rubbing the lace over your smooth skin, making you wait like you’ve waited all day, all evening. When I touch you, very lightly, not letting you have the pressure or the placing that you want, you’ll try to push into me, but I’ll hold you still, so you only get what I give you. You’ll enjoy being held still, won’t you?”

“Ye-esss,” she breathes. She can feel it in her imagination as well as in the grip on her shoulders: strength to keep her in place, strength to which she’ll submit without an argument, without a qualm.

“When I finally touch you you’ll be unbelievably responsive: soaked and oh-so-very-ready for me; and when I slip a finger just a fraction into you I’ll find you hot and tight, so desperate and needy; but you’re not allowed to make a noise and you’re not allowed to move against me. I’ll keep you right on the edge, all the way home, and you’ll enjoy every single second of it; every moment that I’m in control of your reactions. It’s everything you need and want.”

The wobble is far more pronounced this time. Standing is increasingly difficult: her inner muscles no help at all because they are clenching rhythmically and she’s been teetering on the edge for moments now, wholly in the spell of the story: there in the cab, the restaurant, and she knows what it feels like to be naked under a dress now, so the words are playing into her memory not just her imagination and it’s almost too good, almost too much; but she has to control her reactions because if she doesn’t he’ll leave her on the edge for much longer and she’s not just whimpering now, she’s softly moaning and barely aware she’s repeating _please sir, please let me, please_ and he’s still saying _No, not yet_ , and she’s blindfolded but she can _hear_ him smiling that dangerous, lazy, predatory smile: wholly in control.

“You’re not staying still, kitten,” he says softly. She makes an effort and locks her knees again. “Good girl. That’s my obedient little kitten.” She whimpers again: _please, please_ , and he steps a little closer and drops the hand not holding the leash down over her back and her ass and then finally traces a finger between her legs and he doesn’t even touch the bundle of nerves as he says _Yes_ and she’s coming on the word: permission sending her over the edge.

When she opens her eyes, still with aftershocks vibrating through her, she’s caught in his arms and he’s playing idly, patiently, with the leash. The blindfold is gone, but her wrists are still cuffed, and she’s still dressed, to the extent she was dressed, anyway. He’s also petting her, stroking the fabric of her dress, smoothing the nap in the way one might stroke in the direction the fur of a cat lies. She is also still on her feet, though only because she is being held: one arm round her shoulders; one around her waist. Both arms are exuding considerable satisfaction. The rest of the hard body holding her is exuding considerable tension, the reason for which is pressed firmly against her.

The physical evidence of his raging desire doesn’t show in his voice at all: the same smooth, compelling dominance. “See how good it is when you have to wait for my permission?” He walks them to the large armchair and sits down. She stays standing, waiting for him to tell her what to do. It’s so easy, just to let someone else decide. It’s all she wants and needs.

“Kneel down beside me, kitten.” She does, with alacrity. He stretches an arm around her and brings her to be tucked against his leg, then, to her slight surprise, encourages her to lean her cheek on his thigh and simply strokes her hair lazily. It feels very comfortable, being petted and cuddled, there against him: not what she was expecting; a halfway house between the position of absolute submission that she had been anticipating and the cosseting of a plain-vanilla lover, when she’d have been in his lap. But then, her hands are still imprisoned, reminding her that this is not plain vanilla at all.

She pulls a little against the cuffs, testing the links, and it seems to remind the man beside her (she won’t think the name. If he has a name she’ll fall out the scene and be her normal self again and this will all stop cold. She can only have this if it’s completely anonymous.) that they’re still on. He slides a warm hand down her arm to her wrists, and her arm drops free for an instant, till he’s brought both her wrists round in front of her and locked them together again. He pushes her gently to sit back on her heels and looks at her, neatly settled and her hazel eyes still hazy and full of desire, the leash running from the delicate padlock to wrap around his hand.

“Whose are you, kitten?”

“Yours,” she breathes, dripping desire and seduction from the demure posture. “Your pet, sir.” Here and now, there’s no question: she _wants_ to be owned for the night.   Here, there’s no longer stress, or tension, or the biting need to work harder, better, faster; no blood or unkindness or viciousness or death; only pleasurable obedience and then only pleasure. He’s taken it all away, lost in the first blindingly hard orgasm. She looks up at him through swept lashes, large-eyed and naughtily mischievous, wets her lips and bites down; suddenly openly seductive.

Castle looks at his kitten-Kat and recognises the shift that’s just occurred. She’s the way she’d been the first time, completely his, completely compliant – completely sensual. _The game’s afoot_.

“And what shall I do with my pet?” She looks up at him, wriggles a little, answers the rhetorical question anyway.

“Whatever you decide.” He raises an eyebrow at her instant, complete obedience.

“Whatever I decide, hmmm?” He pauses, and she wriggles again, the heat in his eyes scorching down her veins. “Use your mouth, kitten.” He pulls her up towards him, and she leans forward, her cuffed hands unbuttoning, unzipping; reaching past the denim to the silk boxers underneath: small dextrous hands gripping and sliding as she releases the thick hard weight; plays with it for a little time, feathering the soft skin and rubbing over the wide head, and then dips to flick her tongue over it, taste him, and then close her lips over him. His hands close on her head, and she welcomes it: he holds her firmly but not still; letting her set the pace, take him deeper into her hot mouth at her own speed. The submission implicit in her kneeling, hands in the cuffs, naked under the dress, is enough to satisfy him now: he doesn’t need to play at force when she’s so ready to give in; he doesn’t need to push when his words leave her completely his. His hips jerk under her wicked mouth, and he doesn’t try to stop his own release. She swirls her tongue over him to clean him, and smiles, happy that he’s pleased and satisfied: tidies him away for the moment and sits back again with her hands demurely in her lap until he should decide on the next play.

It doesn’t take long. He removes the cuffs and puts them on a table within easy reach.

“We’re home, after our dinner.” He gestures once, and she unfolds elegantly to rise to her feet. “Finally alone. You’re so frustrated you can barely think, but you’re not allowed to come yet, are you? I haven’t given you permission.” She’s soaked, again, and almost as frustrated as his story would have her. “I like you like this, desperate and needy and held right there on the edge: wholly under my control as you have been for the whole of the day, ever since I told you we’d go out. Everybody’s seen your collar, and no-one’s guessed what it is. But now we’re home.” He deepens his voice. “Take your dress off, kitten. We’re home, and that means that you should be naked for me.”

She reaches back to unfasten the hook at the top of her dress, arching slightly as she does; pulls the zip down and lets the dress fall to pool on the floor, leaving her naked except for high heels and rhinestone collar. He takes hold of the leash again.

“Pretty,” he says with dark contentment, and pulls gently so that she comes closer. “I like looking at you, knowing that you’re mine.” He tugs again. “Where should you be, now?”

“Kneeling,” she husks, wholly in the scene now, and sinks down beside his chair.

“That’s right. Naked and wet and kneeling and mine.” He encourages her cheek back on to his thigh so that he can stroke her hair again. Not this time, but another, he’ll have her curled naked in his lap where he can pet her as he chooses and treat her as she needs and wants. He’s becoming more sure of his conclusion of her particular variant with every passing moment, though he’ll analyse it properly later. For now, it’s plenty enough that she came, and he conquered. In more ways than one.

When he’s had enough of stroking her; of showing her that aftercare and petting her is as essential to his dominance and her submission as the words and the collar and the leash, as essential as her obedience; he lifts her head and pulls her up and spreads her wide across the bed and fixes her there, pinned like an open-winged butterfly on some naturalist’s board. She’s glistening, sweat and renewed arousal sheening her pale skin; the collar glittering around her neck; colour at her hair and eyes and lips; her taut nipples, between her legs. No nail polish to match or complement her lips: no other colour except the faint traces of her veins, blue beneath the white.

“It’s the end of our evening. You’ve been waiting, increasingly desperate, all day, all through our dinner and the time at home: you’ve teetered on the edge under my hands. But you haven’t fallen: you’re too well trained. You’ve been obedient, and it’s time for your reward.” He trails hard fingers over her breast, rolls and pinches gently; shapes the small mound: repeats on the other side and watches her try to writhe, push into him; and, when she can’t, whimper softly and plead for more. He knows exactly how to pinion her so that there’s no strain but no movement. He’ll be in control of her reactions, right till the end of the night. More is exactly what she will have.

She’s discovered the interesting effects of edging. Now it’s time to show her the other side of the coin: to show her that while she has to exert control to be obedient, he can strip her control as easily as he has her clothes. She needs to know that he owns her actions and reactions: that all she does – all she’ll ever have to do – is obey and respond.

“What do you want, kitten?” But he bends and takes her mouth before she can answer, confidently plundering and silencing her moans. “What do you want,” he repeats when he rises, but then nips at her collarbone, moves down and sucks on her breast, nips again; leaving her unable to speak beyond _please_ and wordless begging whimpers. The earlier scene has left her terrifyingly sensitive, and she can feel the building heat shooting sparks from his mouth teasing her breasts straight southward to scorch between her legs and flutter the muscles, fluid scalding her.

“I know what you want,” he murmurs, dripping desire into her ear. “You want to lose control. You want me to be in control. Well, you’re going to get what you want, both of your wants. I’m going to make you come until you see stars, kitten; until you can’t see anything but me; until you’re screaming for me. You’re mine, and that means that I can withhold or give as I choose.” She isn’t registering the words, only the seductive, dominant tone; left mindless by his hands and then his mouth on her breasts: unable to prevent him taking her higher and higher and already begging _don’t stop, please, let me please, please_ and then there are no more words and she’s shattering around nothing.

“One,” he says, with predatory satisfaction. It’s not till his firm fingers trace down her body and start to tease at her folds that his meaning becomes borne upon her.   “So wet, kitten.” She tries to squirm, and fails. “That’s not nice. No running away from me. I thought you knew that. I’ll tell you when you’re allowed to leave, and that’s not now.” He plays a little more forcefully, and she starts to plead almost immediately. Orgasm overtakes her much faster, this time.

“Two.” He pauses for a few seconds, till her eyes re-open, and then slides a thick finger over slick, hot flesh. When it parts her and enters she bucks against his hand and screams her need, too sensitised to resist as he adds a second finger and then thrusts in and out, adding a wicked little curl. She can’t prevent him doing anything he chooses, and it seems that his choice is her open and screaming.

“Three. I wonder, do you taste as good as you look?” He glides his damp fingers over her lips. “Open, kitten. Lick them clean.” She does. “Good girl. Such a pretty, talented, naughty mouth, and all for me. You’ll use it just as I tell you.” His hot eyes run down her. “But now it’s my turn to use my mouth,” and the next thing she knows she’s screaming again as he licks over her and scrapes over the nerve bud and his tongue is _inside_ her and _please no I can’t not again please no more it’s too much please please please_ but he won’t stop and he just keeps driving her on and she shatters again and she can’t stop him because she’s held wide open for him to play as he pleases and she’s already seeing stars.

He’s naked, and once again sheathed in a condom. “Four. This time, kitten, I’m going to take you. I’m going to be inside you while you’re screaming for me. You’ll be under me and wet and hot and tight around me.” He’s between her legs, tip probing her. “You’re my kitten and I _own_ you.” He surges into her, and she’s so over sensitised that she comes around him at once and then he comes too, hot and hard and heavy above her.

When she resurfaces this time her wrists and ankles are undone but he’s wrapped the leash around his closed fist. Even if she knew where the key was she wouldn’t be able to slip away like the cat he’s called her; not without alerting him. But she doesn’t, and before she has a chance to think about how she might he’s alive beside her, locking a firm and heavy arm over her to keep her with him. Truth to tell, he’s big, warm and she still doesn’t have to think or decide or do anything, and he’s left her utterly exhausted. She doesn’t even try to protest: simply curls against him and stays where he’s put her until he should unlock her collar and allow her to leave. She’s too tired and sated to think or remember or care about anything: closes her eyes and drifts off again.

But too soon she awakes, and when she does remembers that she needs to recover her normal self: that this has been a time out of time where she needn’t be alpha-Beckett, top of the team and top of the detecting tree. Time to step back through the looking-glass to her normal life. Suddenly she has to leave: not wanting to recognise what she’s done and who she’s been. She tries to pull away, and then, realising her mistake as his arm tightens, struggles. Castle opens one sleepy eye and looks at her. She can’t pretend anonymity now, with his face an inch from hers and no spectacular sex to blur her thinking.

“Let me go.   I want to go home.” Her voice is starting to rise, and she rams it back down into its normal control. “ _Siamese_ ,” she remembers to say. He lets her go at once. It’s more of a relief than it should be. Her dress is back on before he’s located the key: she’s standing impatiently, frantically, at the door with her hand on the lock as he springs the padlock and removes the collar. She’s gone almost before it’s off.

She recovers her wrap at the coat check (why do seedy clubs have a coat check?) and is in a cab home in nothing flat, squirming with embarrassment and the knowledge that she’s just been very, very expertly turned inside out. She has to forget it. She needs to be back to normal in the next twenty-four hours, and that means forgetting that she ever wanted or needed or liked this.


	6. The skull beneath the skin

Beckett reaches home and throws herself into the hottest shower she can stand, scrubbing at her skin to remove any traces of sweat and arousal and memory. She can’t believe she did that, went there – gave herself up _again_ when she’d promised herself _never_. Once was an accident. Twice is stupidity, and worse, capitulation to her poisonous addiction.

She forces her way back through seething shame – she doesn’t even _like_ him (but her body does, as does that primitive unwanted portion of her brain where his words trigger all her darkest desires and nascent needs) – to try to analyse why she’d done it.

She was stressed. So what, she’s _always_ stressed. She’s always coped, before. Except twice now she hasn’t. But she can. She simply needs to de-stress in the ways that she’s always used, that always work. More running, more sparring; and soothing, serene baths with soft bubbles and softer scents afterward; smooth cool sheets to sleep in; a quiet life outside the precinct. She very carefully doesn’t think that being told what to do, being petted and controlled, simply being submissive for a short time, would provide her with the space of peace that she needs in her life too.

She’d been inches from a very sharp blade. But she’s faced guns and knives before, that’s what being a cop involves. She’s never needed anything like this before, and she shouldn’t need it now. She wouldn’t have needed it, she tells herself; she _wouldn’t_ have needed it; and knows she lies. It would have been just _fine_ if he’d left her alone to recover her control in solitary peace. She’s managed it every time before.

She’s faced down Death for ten years: danced with the skeleton as her partner on numerous occasions. Why should she be frightened of him now?

And yet she knows. She had been so close to her own edge that in January she’d seriously been considering an end. She’s walking a lonely road, and the fiend is treading ever closer behind her. She’s run out of resilience, and she’s running out of time to recover it.   She doesn’t want to be one of those burnt-out faces that she sees at retirement parties. She doesn’t want to be the guest of honour in the other situation, either.

She’s not on shift tomorrow, she remembers. A day to pull herself together, to stop this foray into _needing_. It’s not who she needs to be. She has to stop this, let it die.

Still feeling somehow smirched and shamed, her own self-knowledge that she had given into temptation and more, had welcomed it, adding to her discomfort, Beckett slides into bed and uneasy, fractured dreams in which she is by turns commanded and then stroked and petted and cosseted; and is not in the slightest reassured in the morning to find that she’s slept better than in weeks and that her overall stress level is lower.

Except in the one area that matters most to her. She is still at the mercy of Rick Castle’s discretion. Or lack thereof.

* * *

On balance, Castle reflects, he thinks he’s on the credit side of the romantic ledger. For a given value – or definition – of romance, anyway. Beckett actually took up his invitation, and more, arrived already most of the way into the scene. He was surprised enough by the first point; the second was quite astonishing. It’s just a shame that something had spooked her at the end, when it had all been progressing very nicely indeed. Still, even her spooking has had some advantages: she’s seen that using her safe word operates precisely as it should: the game stops at once and she is no longer constrained in any way.

He muses over the oddities of the end of the day and the evening’s activities all the way home and, distractedly, most of Sunday too. He can’t help feeling that he’s missing something significant. Once she’s in the scene, she’s perfect: wet, willing and wholly submissive. It would be utterly reasonable to think that she’s completely used to it: that she’s played the game before. But… but. She’d been appalled that he knew who she was. Just for an instant, her precinct mask had slipped and raw terror had shown beneath. He senses an important realisation there, but it’s floating just out of his mental reach. He leaves it be. It’ll come to him. As will Beckett, and her kitten-Kat alter ego, if he can get this right.

Another _but_. But there had been that sudden uncertainty, where she’d _almost_ slipped right out of the scene. However, that, since he’s now thinking clearly, is a little easier to pin down. Pain, in Beckett’s everyday world, means that you’ve been beaten up or shot on the job. Not at all likely to induce pleasure. Therefore the idea of pain is not erotic or arousing at all. Well, that’s fine. There are a couple of ways to deal with that, and both are perfectly acceptable. He can keep the physical act very gentle and not actually painful at all, and rely on position and words to turn her on. It had, he recalled, worked the first time. That’s fine. He’s not so keen on that form of dominance that he’s in any way bothered by the change of emphasis. Some others have liked it, and he’s obliged, but he’s not stayed with them. As a big man, he’s only too aware that strength and size can be misused – and he is still not at all certain, he recalls, that kitten-Kat actually is fully aware of the rules of the game and would know when to safe-word out.

The alternative is to try it, and see whether pleasure-pain relieves the stress of real pain. Hmm. No. Not yet, and possibly not ever. Stick with the original thought. Apart from anything else, he prefers domination by less forceful means: words; toys; edging and/or overload; dress, or undress; decoration. His mind flits to a very attractive picture of delicate links and pretty necklets and equally pretty bracelets and anklets, over soft white satiny skin. He pulls it back where it belongs, though not before he’s made a couple of online purchases to add to his collection.

Ah – there it is, finally arriving in his head: the idea he’d been chasing. Masks. He’d _known_ this. He’d known that she’d need masks, and anonymity. Suddenly he sees that she’s masked in the precinct too: calm and unemotional all the time. A built-in mask at work – and then a silk mask at the club. He is abruptly aware that he may only have seen Beckett’s real face twice: once horrified terror; once slumped against the wall and desperately struggling for composure. So who’s the real Beckett, then? Because he might not have met her at all.

He sits comfortably at his desk and sips his coffee, happily in control of his writing – which is progressing very well – and contemplates how best to ensure that he can continue coaxing his kitten back to him: how to show her that she doesn’t need a mask. They wouldn’t need a club either, if she’ll come to him. One of the attractions of this loft was the ability to install – of which he has taken full advantage – extremely effective soundproofing around his bedroom. Meredith had liked to make a lot of noise, though it had never been sincere. It almost makes up for the open-shelving walls of his office. Almost. The thought of his kitten kneeling by his desk is very arousing, but sadly quite impossible in normal circumstances. He wonders idly where she lives, and what her apartment might be like. Empty, he is sure. Whether as Beckett or as his kitten, she is no more likely to have a cheating one-night stand – or two-night stand, now – than she would be to unfold angels’ wings and soar through the Manhattan skies.

* * *

It seems, for a while, that coaxing is not at all possible. Beckett doesn’t provide the slightest hint that she needs or wants anything from him, and there is not a single crack in her façade. She is resolutely alpha and in charge; giving the orders and never, not for one single solitary moment, indicating that she is anything other than on top of her game and her job. She’s completely cool and unemotional: mild irritation at his occasional attempts at flirtation; frustration if nothing is popping on the case. Sleazy, rich teenage murderers don’t phase her; political murders don’t bother her at all. Through it all, Castle prowls along behind her, watching and waiting for his next opportunity, never indicating that he knows any other aspect of her than this precinct-in-command person, and all the while writing as if demons were whipping him on.

Because he’s firmly in control of the pace of matters, and of his writing, and because his life is currently _almost_ exactly how he wants and likes and needs it to be, he’s also firmly in control of his more wayward desires and thoughts. He’s perfectly well aware that his desire to exert sexual dominance is always far stronger when he doesn’t feel that the rest of his life is within his control, and as long as he’s writing well, (and he is) then he is quite happy to take his time and do it right. Soon enough, he knows, the pressure will rise again and she’ll need something more than the ever-increasing time she’s spending in the gym.

He still doesn’t, though, let himself show by a single glance or gesture or word that there is or could be anything other than their professional (as it were) association. As the two subsequent cases have passed, although the impenetrable shell and deep reserve have never opened for a single instant, the original hard anger and dislike have dissipated and been replaced by a cool, amused tolerance for his foibles and enthusiasms, cut with a calm acceptance of his theories and presence. And still he’s waited, stalking the possibility of stress-fuelled explosion.

It hasn’t arrived: not even late one night in the dark, empty bullpen when he’d had an idea – he’s had lots of ideas, but this one was about the case and thus repeatable in public – and simply _known_ he’d find her there. He’d hoped he might find kitten-Kat, not Beckett, but not so. She’d startled when she saw him, but then she’d been just the same as if everyone had been around them, and he’s not willing to push the pace, yet. He doesn’t even know where she lives.

He needs to coax, lure, entice her; because he may, he hopes, yet become her dom, but _she’s_ the one with the safe word, which means that she is ultimately the one who is really in control of the game. Maybe once she’s sure of that she’ll also be sure of him.

He opens the locked drawer in his nightstand, and runs a slow gaze over the delicate rhinestone collar, now joined by a delicate pair of filigreed rhinestone bracelets and a matching pair of anklets. All of them have small padlocks and small loops. Curled neatly around them are two short, two longer, and one much longer lengths of fine silvery chain. His imagination will have to suffice, for now.

* * *

The next murder is distinctly different. For a start, the deceased has been frozen for five years. For a second, her husband is dead too, also murdered. For a third, Castle is playing laser tag with Alexis and trying very hard to ignore his mother in a face mask getting in the way when the door sounds and it turns out to be not a stray delivery boy but Beckett, clearly massively overstressed and wholly frustrated. At least, it’s clear to Castle. It’s entirely hidden to everyone else. All the time he’s inviting her in and stripping off the laser vest and goggles – and disposing of the rest of his family – he’s wondering what the problem is.

“Can I make you a drink?” Beckett nods in reply, looking uncertain, as if she doesn’t think she should be here. “What would you like?”

“Oh – coffee, please.” There’s a surprise. He makes it rapidly and ushers Beckett into his office, trying not to think that his bedroom is only one door away. It’s not – yet – the right time. But it might be, very soon. Her total alpha personality is just a little fractured, right now: the cracks are already beginning to show. The last time it had fractured, later that same night she’d been naked and screaming for him, caught by his collar and his words and then his hands and his body; totally, fully, under his control. But not quite yet. Anticipation will add savour to this sauce.

When she starts to explain, he understands – though he’s not wholly sure that _she_ does, or if she does that she’s admitting it to herself at all – why she’s here. She’s lost sight of the path of the case, and this time it’s not only frustrating and irritating her, it’s stressing her out.   He suspects, from the tone of her voice and her uncharacteristically indefinite posture, and from the subtext that he hears but can’t yet interpret, that for some reason there is a lot more to this visit than he knows. He’s never heard her admit that she _can’t_ before.

Her tension isn’t easing in any way as they discuss it, Beckett pacing relentlessly: unable to stop; very different from her normal calm demeanour. If she weren’t so very tense, he’d think she’d loosened up.

She _has_ loosened up. Only Beckett would do so by being tense – but she’s showing it. A break in her astonishing control. Hmmm. He becomes more sure that he should take another step.

He excuses himself for a moment, and on the way back brings with him, safely and invisibly tucked in a pocket, the necklace-collar. The key that opens the locked door to the part of Beckett that she isn’t releasing, or admitting. It’s the switch that flips her from badass alpha to submissive.

They throw around a few more suggestions, but none provide a killer blow. The best idea that either of them manage is to walk the scene, and that’s not going to happen tonight. Beckett’s level of tension is not in any way abated by the discussion, nor by Castle’s proximity. He’s now leaning on the desk (or should that be looming?) shoulder to shoulder and almost touching her.   It would take very little to change the mood.

The scent of danger and arousal writhes through the air; the room becomes close-confined; Castle’s posture has subtly changed from the easy-going public persona to the in-charge dominant male. There’s a pause, pregnant with possibilities; a gap in which all outcomes are weighed in the balance.

Beckett has acquired that look of slight uncertainty, the softer eyes, that he’s seen when she was on the verge of dropping out of the scene last time. This time, he thinks, she’s on the verge of falling _in._ Just a little forceful suggestion, and she’ll fall. But still he waits, letting the sexual tension build, letting dark awareness of his altered aura; his leashed strength and his size; of her hidden desire to submit, now rising to the surface; swirl about them and draw her in, make her ready for his possession.  

Silence falls heavy and hot around them: here in the heart of his loft. A few small steps would take them through the open door through which his bedroom lies, and she knows it: flicking nervous glances at it; biting her lip; poised on the wire between wanting and not wanting. And yet he waits, projecting ever more command and a hard certainty of the outcome. It’s a silent battle of wills and dominance: her ability to control herself against his ability to control her.

Her lip is bleeding, now. She’s chewed it into rawness in the last minutes, and the more the tension has risen the more she’s bitten down. She’s losing her fight against herself: possibly lost it the moment she came here, but she’s still struggling against her own need.

* * *

Beckett had spent the early evening fighting the case, staring at her board and looking for anything that might, however tentatively, provide a lead or a clue or even a hint of either. She’s spent the last three weeks fighting the cases to defeat and her own inclinations to a standstill: hours in the precinct gym, more hours and miles pounding the streets to a hard-beat playlist and exhaustion. And none of it is working: her tensions are rising, the unemotional carapace of her precinct self ever harder to maintain; and all the time she’s terrifyingly aware of the edge on which her reputation rests, sitting next to her desk and smiling gently, as if he doesn’t know that he holds her life in his hands.

It has never occurred to her that he doesn’t know that he does.

So when he’d left she’d kept on working, taken a sparring break and achieved no insight, only sore knuckles and tired muscles and the space in her head that let in the nagging knowledge that she could fix this if only she let herself go. If only she let herself fall. But she can’t fall, she mustn’t fall: she has to be in control of herself and her life. And being in control of her life means solving the cases that rain upon her: _Beckett-flavoured_ : the hardest cases, the cases with a twist or a kink, the cases that no-one else can take.

She stares at the board, and can’t solve it; has yet more coffee, and can’t solve it: and all the time her perfectionist instincts and desperation to keep some, any, sort of control of her life are screaming at her to solve it: to work it harder, better, faster, longer. But underneath that, other instincts are screaming at her that she knows how else to progress it; that she knows that she needs the challenge of another mind – and that she needs a break or she’ll snap. The pressure of expectation – her own, no-one else’s – upon her is building with every day, and the lack of results feeds into the lack of other results: ten years of no results.

Ten years of no results; ten years of being strong; ten years of watching over weakness with no outlet. Ten years of failing, and for four of those not being permitted to try. It’s why she can’t afford to fail anyone else. No-one should experience that void in their life, without an explanation: though explanation is little enough consolation it’s still something to cling to. And other people’s answers give her a rope to cling to: a hope that one day so will she have an explanation. At least, they always used to. Lately they just remind her that she didn’t find anything.

She still goes back, looks again: more often than she should; far more seldom than she’d like; hiding it from Montgomery, who will take further steps if he knew that she did; knowing that too much will send her spiralling down again. _Too much_ is beginning to morph into _at all_. She’s too near the edge, and every success on other cases drives knives into her. She can’t afford to fail them, but success is killing her just as much as failure would.   She can’t stop succeeding, because she can’t afford to fail.

And she knows what she needs to do to solve this one. She needs his mind: hard intelligence to think against, way out theories that somehow hold some point of sense: a new knot in the rope to pull herself up on. She’s flailing for answers, and she needs the stability of another to stop her letting go. She’s never _not_ been able to see the path clear in front of her, before: never admitted or thought that she _can’t_.

But still she doesn’t move, stares at the murder board and stares at her papers, time passing around her as the futility of all her efforts increases; another wasted hour as the clawing need to try the last resort to help her think rips bleeding scratches under her skin and salts them with her failure. She knows why she isn’t leaving. She’s scared. Scared that this is only an excuse to feed her toxic addiction; scared that it’s not about solving the case at all but about something dark and hidden that she doesn’t want to admit is part of her; scared because she doesn’t have the mask that would let her pretend that it’s a meaningless encounter with a man she doesn’t know. Scared that this is a step into something more.

Scared that she’s lying to herself and has been for weeks, or months, or years. She’s so good at lying, because she can’t find the truth.

She has to try to find this truth. Whatever her reasons, she has to try. She can’t afford to fail.

She can’t afford to fall.


	7. Sat on him was Death

She knows that this has been a bad idea as soon as the door opens and the indefinable scent of aftershave and male and simply _him_ rushes into her nostrils. Even if the picture in front of her is far more comic than anything else – _cucumber face masks_? Laser tag with a teen daughter? It doesn’t fit. She doesn’t want to make it fit. Because then she would have to realise that it fits with the soft aftercare and she doesn’t want to remember that or any of it, still less understand that there is a real man behind the anonymous mask or the precinct smarm.

The only thing that stops her turning tail and running is her own pride. Fleeing is an admission that she can’t bear to make. She’s made that admission once already and she cannot be seen to fall apart again. She’s come here as Detective Beckett and she will leave here as Detective Beckett. She doesn’t consider that this leaves quite a lot of space in the middle about which she is resolutely not thinking any thoughts at all.

The sight of a family – though it’s almost as weird a family as the Addams – has shocked her into some sort of sense, fragile as that may be. She refocuses on the case and the challenge. But Castle padding around his loft, making her coffee and somehow domestic, is not easing her at all. Under her locked-down emotions, the terrifying tension of the tethered prey, scenting the tiger on the wind, is rising. She has to do this and get out. Predators don’t stop being predatory just because they have cubs.

They’ve collectively got nothing. Nothing except a walk-the-scene suggestion which, while sensible, is not achievable tonight. Nothing except that Castle is suddenly taking up all the space and all the air around her and she feels like she’s trapped: running around and around with no way out, like a convict chained to the treadwheel. Her eyes dart back and forward to the open door in the solid wall behind which the shadows of a bedroom lie, and all the while he’s still and silent and stalking her capitulation and surrender. It would be so easy. It’s what she wants; it’s what he wants. She chews on her lip in desperate indecision.

The sharp sting of pain and the harsh taste of iron from her own blood in her mouth where she’s bitten into her lip shock her out of the spell.

“No,” she breathes. “No. I _won’t_. I can’t.” She’s standing, moving, leaving. Castle reaches out for her, but with an evasive shimmy that a wide receiver couldn’t emulate she’s beyond him; opening the study door; the moment lost.

He catches up to her at the outer door, as she’s fumbling frantically with the unfamiliar latch.

“Beckett…” he says, reverting to precinct normality, takes a quick breath and remembers what to say. “Beckett, it’s okay. Whatever it is, it’s okay.” There’s something that looks terrifyingly like horror in her eyes, before she slams down control.

“Thank you for coffee,” she says, as calm as if she’d been out for afternoon tea in a prim Victorian establishment, as if none of the last few minutes had happened. But her eyes are still full of ghastly emptiness. “See you tomorrow.” She’s out the door before he can reply.

She did it. She’s stronger than her instincts and she’s stronger than her need and _she will not do this._ She didn’t do it. She’s winning.

So why does it feel like she’s losing?

* * *

Behind her, behind his softly closing outer and then study door, Castle is not taking any trouble at all to resist his hard edged determination to find out what is really happening here – and then change it to a story he likes better. She’d so nearly been there, and then she’d said _I won’t, I can’t_ and taken fright and fled. He’s learning to hate that look of horror in her eyes, and he’s only seen it twice.

Thought is no help. Safely confident in his own sexuality and, courtesy of that same confidence and more money than he knows what to do with, completely unbothered by his reputation – and often flattered by it: though he’d prefer that it didn’t involve his private preferences it won’t matter if it does; he can’t understand the completely different mind-set of someone who can’t afford to be exposed, can’t afford to be anything other than what the world sees, and is terrified of her secret desires being found out. Or of finding herself out. It simply doesn’t cross his mind, just as it doesn’t cross his mind that _he’s_ found her out. It’s not helped by a ridiculously large dose of annoyance that she’s run away again, when he wants her back with him, which impedes his thinking more than a little. She doesn’t need to be frightened of him, or of her own wants, he thinks angrily. It’s not like he’s done anything that she didn’t agree to. It’s not as if he’s told her secrets. He never would.

All he wants is to take care of her in all the ways that a good dom should, privately. Because he may like submission in the bedroom but he’s rapidly finding that alpha everywhere else is a pretty hot deal too. The contrast leaves him reeling. He’s never encountered this almost-schizophrenic difference before, and it’s irresistible. _She’s_ irresistible: tough as tungsten steel and then she melts like butter. He’ll butter her paws, to keep his Kat, and then she’ll stop leaving; stop resisting him.

If only she would stop resisting herself.

* * *

Walking the scene works, Beckett finds, not without some minor irritation at both Castle’s flirtation and the fact that it was his idea. But she has a lead, and she can follow it, and while that is the case she doesn’t need anything more. She can cover her one failure with this success: she can see her way again and she will think about nothing else. She ignores the roiling pressure in her mind and the still-growing stress: drinks yet stronger coffee and is genuinely as confused as anyone when everyone wonders why the coffee runs out twice as fast as previously; spends each evening in the gym when everyone’s gone and resorts to using a little concealer on her knuckles to hide the tell-tale evidence. Exhaustion lets her sleep for long enough to cope, or, if not to cope precisely, to hide that she isn’t coping.

She cracks the case, and doesn’t like the answer: hates the sin and sympathises with the sinner more than she ever has before. Perhaps it’s some left-over fellow feeling for the killer’s years-held grief that makes her speak, confess a little of her past to Castle in the shadowed, silent, empty bullpen.

Perhaps it was just stupidity.

She shouldn’t give out more ammunition. She shouldn’t let a writer, a best-seller, who has freely admitted and advertised that his next book is based on her, know _anything_ more. She closes down and tries to leave it behind with a fusillade of flip comments and a cannon-load of snark, as if it means nothing to her. It’s just another edge that she hasn’t avoided, another indication of her loosening grip on the rope to which she’s clinging. The elevator can’t come fast enough to take her home, to send her changed and out and running, hard and fast and exhausting through the twilight air and darkening streets tonight.

The elevator doesn’t come fast enough.

Before it’s arrived, Castle catches up, moving faster than she knew he could and turning her, pushing her against the wall until he can raise her face and see the truth in it; see the answer in the depths of her eyes.

“Not ‘till tomorrow’. You’re already overloaded and I’m not waiting for you to work out that you need to put it down any longer. You’re killing yourself to prove some point I don’t get and I am not watching you do it any more. I’ll see you in an hour. You know the game, you know the rules, you know where. You know that you need to.” He leans into her, pinning her against the wall, heedless that this is her workplace, and takes her mouth with an assumption of rights that he doesn’t have.

That he _shouldn’t_ have. Somehow she’s letting him have any right he wants to take and it’s stopped mattering while his big body is enveloping hers and his mouth is hot and possessive and she doesn’t need to think.

Castle had watched Beckett’s stiff shoulders walk away through the deserted bullpen and abruptly decided that _watching_ all that agonising tension being locked down inside her was exactly the wrong thing to do. He doesn’t even try to resist the tsunami-surge of dominant possessiveness that catapults him to her before the elevator can destroy his chances; doesn’t resist the desire to _tell_ her what she needs; and certainly doesn’t resist delivering the forceful, demanding kiss that counterpoints his words; that she herself is not resisting.

He presses into her further, feeling her flow and melt into him and cede control, and it takes all he has and all he is to stop now, stop here; to take this and keep this to a place where she’ll accept it and in which she won’t later feel in some way compromised. Even now, in the midst of this shared blaze, he knows that her bullpen is not the place: won’t ever be the place.

He has to take this to the only place where she’ll play this game: but where she’ll wear her mask, and he’ll never see her full face or her expressions or her emotions; where he has to try to read her thoughts from the small changes in her body. It’s too early to demand she doesn’t wear it: it’s too early to order her to remove it; and if he takes it away from her when she’s in no position to object she’ll flee and never trust him. After all, she’s never not wearing a mask: as inscrutable as the Siamese cat that’s her safe word.

Except just for an instant, now. Because just for an instant her face wasn’t masked and wasn’t closed and wasn’t cool and sardonic and artificially calm. Just for an instant her eyes were open and wild and dark and only focused on him and just for an instant she _believed._ He should never have let her out his office without kissing her a couple of days ago. Never.

“I’ll see you in an hour,” he says again. “If you don’t show, we’ll be having this same discussion tomorrow.” He doesn’t say _I’ll find you_ , though he would. Somehow, he’d find her. (He always knows a guy.) He kisses her again, smooth, searching, and unmistakably, possessively, in control. It takes him more effort than he likes to stay that way. He moves round to her ear, licks a hot wet line over the pulsing vein and the jumping nerve, and her hands have come to his neck and the soft noises are telling him she’s _fine_ with this; oh-so-fine with this. He murmurs softly, darkly in her ear.

“Nothing you don’t want. Masks if you want them. You know I’ll listen for your safe word. No names, no faces. Tomorrow it’ll never have happened. Time out of time.” He doesn’t use a name; he doesn’t call her kitten. He’s quiet and sure and hypnotically reassuring. “Just a dream. Nothing in a dream is ever real in the morning. Only a pleasurable dream.” He reaches for the elevator button and presses it again, bends to kiss her once more before it arrives; a seduction to draw her in. He doesn’t need force to dominate now, only his words, wrapping silkily around her.   He doesn’t know where these words have come from: what unsuspected stream of his unconscious deductions has let them flow loose to drift and pool around her.

The ting of the elevator lets him bring her away, and he need say no more.

* * *

 _Only a dream. Only a dream. Only a dream._ It echoes in the spaces of her skull and resonates in the fractals of her consciousness. If it’s only a dream – she can have dreams. In dreams nothing is real, nothing remembered, nothing is known. In dreams she can be somebody else; in dreams she can have what she wants.

If it’s only a dream, then it isn’t really she that wants this, it isn’t she that’s taking part. A dream to soothe her troubled mind, to restore her ravelled soul. _To die, to sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream. Who knows what dreams may come_? It’s not a conscious thought. The worm of temptation wriggles through her mind. If it’s not real… it doesn’t really happen. If it’s a dream, if it’s a fantasy, it’s no different from her solitary imaginings in her solitary bed.

It’s only a dream.

She used to have dreams. Dreams of being a lawyer, dreams of being married, two laughing children, a house a little out of the city, a loving husband. Those dreams died, in an alley. Dreams of being a good cop, solving the unsolvable. Solving her mother’s case. Those dreams died, too. Dreams of saving her father. He saved himself, and she’s been strong for him so that he never falls again. Those dreams are also dead. None of her dreams involved kneeling naked and masked before a wholly dominant male. Not then. That had come later, as her ordinary love life had failed to satisfy her.

It’s only a dream.   Tomorrow, it will never have happened.

And telling herself that, she’s moving to her closet, picking out a dress, sliding it over her slim body, putting on a wrap, getting in a taxi, putting on the mask.

All of it, only a dream.

* * *

It’s still all a dream when he kisses her deeply and places the collar round her neck; it’s still all a dream when he leads her to another private room; it’s still all a dream when he sits down and leaves her standing in front of him, in her pretty dress and pretty necklace and pretty heels; it’s all a dream when he begins to talk.

And then it becomes her fantasy: the deep soft tones of command slipping through her skin to the nerves below and seeping down each sensitised synapse; slow pooling heat within her.

“Come closer, kitten.” There’s no leash, tonight, nothing to tug her nearer except her own desire. His hands rest on her waist, slide a little down, slowly, over the narrow sharpness of her hips. She had been long, lean, the first time. Now she’s as slim as a rapier, and outside this room she’s twice as deadly. The cords of her muscle belie the hazy softness in her eyes; the drugging desire. _Dreams_ , he remembers, and knows where to begin.

“Don’t try to talk, kitten. Don’t try to do anything. I’ll do it all.” His fingers exert a gentle pressure that brings her unresisting frame yet nearer. “You’re tired. It’s been a long day, and you’re tired, weary deep in your mind and your soul. You’re at home, alone, where you can relax.” He draws her down on to his lap. “It’s time you went to bed.” He turns her slightly into him: his soft, tired, somehow small kitten curled against him. This is a different route to dominance: making her see what he wants her to see; there’s more to it than simple command. He’ll own her mind, as he knows he can own her body.

“You begin to undress.” Her hands move as if she were there in her own apartment, her mind already slipping soundlessly under the sea of his seduction. He takes them into his own, holding her wrists in one firm clasp. “Don’t do anything.” His other hand slides to the hook at the top of her dress, and slowly opens it. “You want a shower” – there’s a very slight twitch – “no. Tonight, you want a bath,” – and relaxation again. Ah. A piece of information about something other than her sexual preferences or crime – “hot and deep and soothing.” He lowers the zipper concealed in the back of her dress, and strokes: tiny, delicate movements to keep her wrapped in the web of his words. It’s all about control through his words: weaving the tapestry of his design.

He releases her hands and turns her a little more, smoothing the dress from her shoulders, noting, as he hasn’t in the precinct due to her formal button-downs, the delineation of her collarbones, the blue tracery of her veins, the filaments of fine-cut muscle undisguised by the covering skin. Only the small swelling of her breasts indicates any softness in her body. “You take off the dress.” he lifts her slightly, and removes it, leaving her – he is pleased, and even this second time moderately surprised, to note – naked in his lap; all long legs and whipcord.   A thought crosses his mind, and he unbuttons his own shirt, spreading the rich cotton wide to nestle her against the warm skin and slow drum of his heartbeat.

“The bath is full, steaming gently, redolent of the scented oil you’ve dropped into it: sandalwood, for relaxation. You flex your knee, draw up one foot, toes pointed.” He insinuates fingers under her leg, bends it till her foot is within his grasp, feathers carefully over her high arch, the extension of her toes.   She can feel the heat from the water becoming the heat from his touch, and drops further into the vision he’s building. “The water’s almost too hot, seeping deep under your skin: your ankle, your calf, your knee” – his hand follows the path of his words – “easing your muscles” – strong fingers press and rub, seeking out and untangling the tense knots – “soothing your mind. You step in, slide under the hot water, breathe in the aroma of the oil, lie back and let the heat take you away: the water lapping over your stomach, over your waist, over your breasts.”

His hand is roaming in harmony with his deep, hypnotic words: she can feel the bath washing over her, and wonders dimly how he knew that her final act to clean away the day is the hottest bath she can bear, the water silky on her tired body. Wherever his touch runs, the heat follows, and she curves into his firm hand. When he stops on her breasts, she mews softly, and pushes against him, wanting the movement to continue.

“Just wait, kitten. You don’t do anything. I’ll do it all. Just listen. You’re mine, and this is what I want tonight. You want it too. No decisions, no thinking. I’ll do all of that.” He strokes, gently; moulds, softly; feathers fingertips over the peaks. No force, tonight. Nothing but words.

He’d first owned her through the effects of his words. Now he’ll own her in a different way.


	8. A fine and private place

“So you’re lying in your bath, with the heat soaking into you and the scent of sandalwood swirling in the air. You’re hardly moving, letting the day leach away and the night surround you, beginning to disconnect. As you lie there, stroked and soothed,” he says softly, still matching his movements to his words, still stroking the sleek line from hip to shoulder, the concave dip from stomach to ribcage, the valley between her breasts, the jut of her clavicles, “your mind floating free, you begin to dream: gently at first, dreaming of hot summer days and the feel of the sun on your throat and face. Gradually it changes, you’re lying spread out, totally private and alone, totally naked; loose-limbed and relaxed, absorbing the heat into all of your body.” She stretches a little, rubs against him where she’s caught close in, eyes shut.

“The water’s ebbing and flowing over your breasts as you breathe, the heat of the water becoming heat in your skin, your dream changing again as the heat in your skin becomes a warmth between your legs, and you open very slightly so the hot water can lick against you there.” A long finger trails down over her stomach, skirts her core, and delicately glides over the pale skin of her inner thigh. Just as in the scenario he’s pouring into her willing ears, her legs fall slightly apart, and he can see a gleam of dampness. He smiles, slow and lazily predatory, to see her so receptive: hypnotised and seduced and relaxed in his lap and grasp; wholly under his spell. She mews again, a clear little note of displeasure that he won’t touch her where she wants him to, and curves into his body. The collar catches and refracts the lights of the room.

“The water’s touching you as softly as a lover would, and in your reverie a lover appears: tall, broad, and big; strong in all the ways you want and need, shadowed against the sun. He cups your face, his thumbs under your chin, tipping your head back just enough for him to lean over and kiss you, teasing your lips and then, when you open for him, taking your mouth as he’ll later take your body.”

He kisses her just as he’d described, tickling his tongue along the seam, surging inside as soon as there’s the tiniest opening, invading and conquering and caging her within his arms so that she’s immutably _there_ , deep inside his creation; running his hand up into her hair so that she’s held in place simply by his muscle and bulk: no cuffs, no chains; simply the power in his words and his sinews. He kisses her, simply kisses her, till she’s lax and panting and then curving into his bared chest, open and receptive and willing. So he stops, because it’s no part of his plan to pin her to the bed this early in the scene. She makes the same displeased small noise that she had a moment ago. He lifts right off, and displays the same lazy, leonine smile of a moment ago.

“You’re his, and you know it. You might complain or plead or beg, but he’s the one who sets the pace and makes the decisions. It’s what you want and need. You stretch under the hot water, imagining his touch on your body, and then creating it.” He takes her hands in each of his, placing them on her shoulders. “Your hands slide down to the edge of the water” – he moves her hands under his to the swell of her breasts – “and under it, stroking as he would” – further down, over her now-erect nipples, not lingering there, then pausing at her waist – “stopping where he would. You know what he’d let you have; you know that’s all you’re allowed.” He kisses her again, swallowing the tiny noises, and doesn’t move his hands, trapping hers. “You’re trying to be obedient, but the heat of the bath between your legs is feeding into your fantasy and you’re already excited by it.”

Her eyes are closed, a small flush along her cheekbones, her hands extending beneath his, trying to escape; and he holds her tighter. “Please...” she emits, on a slow breath. He’s caught her: she’s in the scene. She’s soft and yielding and naked and wet and now she’s ready for the next stage: admitting what she wants.

“Please what, kitten? You have to tell me what you want, and then I’ll decide what you get.”

“Please touch me.” She moves sensuously against him, arching into their joined hands. “Touch me where the water would. Please.” Her slim hands tug downwards under his wide span, trying to push him lower.

“Naughty,” he points out. “I decide. You’re trying to decide for me, and you don’t get to.” He puts her hands behind her back and holds them there in one of his. “That’s better.” The arm behind her supports her as he pushes her slowly back. His slow smile is dangerous as he runs a hot gaze up and down her naked body. The water that isn’t there follows his eyes up and down, lapping over her and leaving heat and wetness behind.

“I always thought that cats didn’t like being wet,” he says conversationally. “You must be an exception.” He runs a single hard finger between her legs. “You’re soaking wet, kitten.” The finger travels smoothly to her lips. “Open,” he orders, tracing the seam and then watching her close again around the digit. When she wraps her tongue round it he becomes painfully aroused. She delivers a sultry, seductive look from half-shut, sleepy eyes, and it’s entirely clear that wherever she started the evening, she’s fallen into the game now: his stunning, sexy kitten pliant and compliant on his lap.

It briefly crosses his mind that it’s as much the words that have relaxed her into feline seductiveness as his soft entrapment of her body. However it arises, though, he’s got the result he currently wants, and the woman he currently wants, and now he can turn it into the form of mutually enjoyable encounter that they currently want.

He grips her wrists a little tighter, just enough so that when she flexes them she can’t shift him, and the expression on her face acquires a tiny hint of satisfaction and – it looks like relief? He’s not sure about that one.

He slides through the dampness again, making her writhe and using the movement to hold her closer into him. “So very wet, kitten. I like your dreams.” She hums wordlessly and contentedly, a tidal undertow of desire shading her tone, and doesn’t fight the strong grasp or the close hold. Only a dream, time out of time. Tomorrow it will never have happened.

It’s still a dream when he continues to talk: soft and seductive and addictive. “There now, kitten. Here you are, relaxed from your bath and your daydreams, massaging in your moisturiser” – he breathes in deeply – “Cherries. You’re cherry ripe, like the old poem. Ripe to be kissed.” He takes her mouth again, smoothly, still holding her hands behind her back so that she can’t pull him to her. “No touching, kitten. It’s all up to me. Just give in to it. It’s what you want, it’s why you’re here, it’s all a dream to help you rest.”

He brings one of her hands out of the grip behind her, keeps the other trapped at her back, places her hand back under his on her shoulder, mimics the movements that she would make as she would smooth in her body lotion, gliding over her shoulders, between her breasts, and then over: slow, gentle rubbing that winds her up the more for his hard fingertips between hers. She curves into the strokes, and sighs as they slip down and away from her sensitive flesh, now a little swollen, her nipples proud and a little darker.

He moves their joined hands downward, stopping briefly when she tries to push his hand on. “Uh-uh. Wait, kitten.” His voice changes, deeper, darker. “Now, remember the rules. You don’t come till I allow it.” There’s a soft whimper. “Understand?”

“Yes…sir.”

The slow trail downward begins again, fingers interlocked, her slim pale hand covered and imprisoned by his, only a part of her fingers visible. Now to take her back into the dream.

“You’re in your bed: alone, soft sheets and plump pillows. You sleep naked” – he’s sure she doesn’t, normally, but this is a fantasy drawn for her – “but tonight you aren’t yet sleepy, even though you’re so very tired. Your bath has left you aroused, needy and wanting, but your lover isn’t there. Only you, quite alone, with heat rising in your veins and your body. You know that he’s forbidden you release if he’s not allowed you to have it, but you’ve been dreaming of his touch all through your solitary bath, the massage as you rub in your moisturiser, and now you’re hot and damp and desperate.” He moves their fingers across the base of her stomach, and she squirms under them, back in the fantasy that’s so close to reality she’s beginning to lose the ability to distinguish.

“Your fingers slide over your stomach, and knowing you’re being disobedient only makes it more exciting. If your lover finds out, he’ll punish you, but you and he both know that you’ll enjoy that too. Sometimes, you just want to be obedient, but now isn’t one of those times. Sometimes, being naughty is its own reward. Sometimes, you’re naughty just so that he’ll find out and punish you in a way that you love. Tonight, you’re being naughty, and you don’t know whether he’ll find out or not. The uncertainty excites you, too.”

He slides her fingers in time with his words, ever lower, the actions now exactly matching the story-fantasy-dream that’s leaving her completely in his spell. The control his words are exerting is simply, utterly, totally overwhelming: no more hesitation, no falling out of the scene, simply his soft, naughty, sexy kitten wholly on display and wholly submitting to his desire. Her desire.

“Your hand slides down, into the heat and dampness between your legs, stroking just where you know it will arouse you most” – and her own fingers touch herself between his, making her wetter, opening for the width of his hand not hers, brought wider by his much broader span. She moans, softly, _please_ , unsure what she’s pleading for, trying to hold control, knowing that he can see and feel every small reaction; that though it’s her fingers too, it’s he who’s orchestrating the score. She knows that she’s already close; needs to pause and let herself drop back, but when she tries to stop the broad fingers and strength won’t allow it and suddenly she knows that, again, just like the very first time, he’s going to push her past control and then choose the consequences. Even that thought sends her higher, feeling her inner muscles stuttering.

“It’s not quite enough. You want more: want your lover; need him there with you, inside you, filling you full and hard, hot pressure thrusting into you. You’re soaked and squirming and if he were there you’d be sobbing for him to give you it.”

“Please,” she whimpers.   “Please, I can’t, I need to stop, please don’t make me disobey, please say I can.”

“Control, kitten. You need to learn to control yourself. That’s what your dream lover tells you, too. But you’re disobeying him.” He slides their hands back and forth, and curls their fingertips so that they slip a fraction into her with every movement across the slick, sodden folds of her body. He’s long since let go of the hand behind her back to hold her still for their merged touch. She’s begging now, frantically pleading, right on the very edge, and with every slide he’s sending one of her fingers, one of his, further into her, deeper, feeling the desperate clenching around them, pressing over the tight knot of nerves on the reverse, forcing her to his rhythm until words are beyond her except for _please, please_ and she’s held out far longer than he’d expected and he has to choose now whether he should force her over and show her the consequences or reward her for obedience but suddenly he doesn’t have to choose because she’s shattering around the two fingers inside her and crying out wordlessly.

He pets her softly, still holding her hard to him; keeping control of his own desire to take her to the bed and take her fast and rough and hard and make her scream for him.   Little steps, though. He wants her to be screaming for _him_ , Castle, not some dream lover that he’s invented for her; not in some faceless night that she will put aside as soon as she leaves, but knowing and accepting that it’s _him_ , will be him tomorrow, and the next day, and every day. Whether she’s his kitten in the bedroom or his badass alpha cop anywhere else, he wants her to see _him_. No masks, no pretence, no dreams. Only he, and she, and nothing between them.

When she opens her eyes, caught against the hot bare skin of his chest, utterly lax in every muscle and sinew, for an instant there’s a strange expression in the bright blue eyes. Swiftly, it alters to the possessive ownership and satisfied dominance that she expects and wants, here in her dream world. She doesn’t want anything to destroy her illusions; to remind her that this is also reality. She pushes that thought far away; stretches a little, curls into his petting, tiny flutters of aftershock still running through her.

“You were disobedient again, kitten,” her owner purrs. “I thought you had learned to control yourself better than that.” The tone slithers between her legs without benefit of her ears or mind. He could say anything in that tone and she’d be wet and open and his. Here. Nowhere but in this dream where she isn’t herself. It isn’t she who’s his. It’s some alter-Kate, who only exists in a dream. She wrenches her mind from that fragment of reality and drowns herself in the voice and the tone and the words and the illusion. It’ll all be a dream in the morning.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, dropping her eyes. “I couldn’t stop.”

“I’m disappointed, kitten. I’ll just need to go back to basics.”   He stops petting. “Stand up and get dressed,” he commands. “No shoes.” She obeys. “Stand facing the wall, there.” He indicates exactly where he means. She draws in a breath, a little nervous of what he might do, a lot aroused by the thought of it. She can hear him approach, but not see him. “Feet apart.” She opens her stance. “Wider.” She complies, until he’s satisfied. It’s not uncomfortable, but she’s very aware that she’s open to him. Dampness puddles at her centre, and her breathing quickens again.

“Raise your arms.” She hesitates. “Raise them.” It’s anything but a request, as he touches the collar. It’s all she needs to remind her of who, what, she is; here in this place. There’s a click around one wrist, a soft clinking and another click, more clinking and two more clicks around her other wrist. She looks up at the cuffs – bracelets? – and the chain holding her arms aloft, not stretching her, but no play in the length either.

“Remember,” he murmurs softly in her ear, “nothing you don’t want. Remember your safe word?” She nods. “Good. Now. Don’t move your feet. Don’t turn your head. You can’t touch. You’re completely open to me and whatever I choose to do.” She can hear the predatory note in his voice, and it sends pleasurable shivers through her. Just like he’d promised her, anticipation of how he might punish her transgression is bleeding through her, the soft reminder that she can halt anything that she doesn’t enjoy giving her security. Her safe word had, after all, worked the last time. She doesn’t question why she’s trusting completely that he will stop instantly on the safe word when she doesn’t trust him at all to keep this other personality secret.

She expects him to touch: to run firm hands over her body, to bring her to the edge with those few movements that will take her over-sensitive skin to blazing, to drop her back and edge her till she’s begging him for release. He doesn’t. Instead, he stands behind her, crowding into her body, pressing her between his bulk and the wall, erection hot against her, proving that barefoot she’s smaller, delicate, enveloped and covered; no match for the size and weight of a big man. Strangely, that’s producing a feeling of security too, as if there’s someone standing between her and the outside world. (But it’s only a dream. No-one stands there in reality.)

Castle has found the evening so far to be extraordinarily interesting, and not just for the fact that kitten-Kat was completely undone by his words and touch. That, he had expected, and despite what he’s said in the scene about disobedience, she’d actually held off for rather longer than he’d thought that she could. Which worries him, slightly. Not because it’ll spoil the games – it certainly won’t – but because that sort of control of yourself, when set beside Beckett’s normal behaviour and added to it, argues that she’s almost incapable of letting go. Almost. But he is now absolutely certain that she falls four-square into bedroom-submissive, and, further, sure beyond all doubt that she needs not just a safety-valve, but someone who can make her stop before she burns herself out. She’s briefly mentioned her history (which he will investigate in the very near future, he’s decided) and he already knows that she’s incapable of laying her caseload down unless ordered to.

So. His fierce, focused, ferocious detective needs a stop signal: a pause to let her rest and rely on another who can, and will, take the decisions away from her. Mix that with her largely unacknowledged desire to be dominated, and you arrive neatly at tonight: an exhausted, weary little kitten who first needs to know that someone else is in charge, and that all that’s required of her is obedience to the story and to him. Naughtiness, or disobedience games, can wait till she’s less tired. Because his particular variant on dominance includes a large dose of protection, and whilst protection of a physical kind is fairly useless for a woman who carries a gun, runs faster in heels than he can in sneakers, and spars incessantly, it doesn’t preclude protection from the burning out she’s aiming for. Emotional protection, perhaps.

And so he leans over and into her; partly sexual, partly proof of simple physical dominance, part shielding; and stays there until he himself is sure that in this, as in the other evenings, she’s still lost in his scene and has, therefore, equally lost her burdens for this space of time.


	9. A lady in the meads

He steps back, finally, starts to run his hands over the extension of her body: from the hands held high above her head, down over her arms, not hurrying at all, smoothly sliding over the edge of her dress, her ribs too prominent under the fabric, over her narrow waist and slim hips, just firmly enough to learn each inch of her figure. All whipcord and wire, he thinks again. Barely any softness at all. He slips his hands upward again, not shifting her dress at all, reaches around her and cups her breasts, thumbs stroking through the light fabric, searching and sure and slowly sensual.

“There, kitten. All stretched out and accessible,” he purrs. “How does it feel to know that you can’t stop me touching you anywhere I want to?” She tries to arch into his hands, without answering other than a formless little satisfied noise. “Words, kitten. I like it when you purr, but when I ask a question I expect you to answer.” He’s just a little stern; the tone of his question demanding truth.

“Exciting…” she whispers. The line of her cheek is pink. Her word is barely audible.

“Exciting,” Castle drawls. “Why is it so exciting?” He draws a wicked little line around her ear and over the blush along her cheekbone. She rubs her face against his fingers, and he strokes again. This time the fingers slip down over the clean edge of her jawline, and round to clasp her chin and run over her lips. Her tongue flickers over their tips, a hotly erotic pink flash.

“Is it because I could do anything?” His fingers slide back to her breasts: roll, then pinch, not hard enough to hurt; but firm enough to shoot sensation through her. She draws in breath, fails to find words when he does it again. “Is it because I’ve pushed you up against a wall and could take you any time I choose?” He presses in once more, and nips at her earlobe. His hands slip down from her breasts to her waist, over her hipbones, stop, and hold her firmly against him, preventing the wriggle. “Is that something you dream about? Being taken up against a wall?” His voice drops to a sensual, slithering sibilance. “We can talk about that, kitten. Once you’ve learned your lesson.”

In one quick motion the dress is up around her waist and she’s open and naked to him. He runs a hard hand over her rear, pats her ass gently, and listens to the tenor of her breathing change, the slightly jagged edge on each inhalation.   A little more nervousness, a little worry about what he might do. But still, this is no time to try anything that would press her limits. She’s overstressed already, and though she’s relaxed into him and he’s turned her into his pet again and given her release through the dominance she wants him to exert – this isn’t the time for rough play. They can explore that later. There will certainly be a later: another time.

Now, it’s time to cover her, envelop her, and touch her as he chooses and she wants. A little discipline first: not much, only a small reminder to her that he’s in command, and she under his control. “You were naughty.” His hand rests on the swell of her buttocks.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs. “Please …”

“Please what, pet?” He pats her again, and she tries to press into his hand.

“I want you.” It’s only a dream.

“But you were disobedient,” he points out reasonably. “You shouldn’t disobey me.” There’s a tiny whimper. “So we’ll play a game, so you learn better.” He smiles slowly, where she can’t see him. “I want you to count each stroke.” There’s a tightly indrawn breath. “If you get to ten, I’ll undo your hands and reward you. If you lose count, we start again. If you come, we start again.”

His hand leaves her ass and for an instant tension flares across her body, though she doesn’t say anything; doesn’t use her safe word. He smiles more darkly. He knows what she’s thinking.

And then he brings a big hand round to her front and places it very precisely to cup her so that his fingers are at her entrance and his thumb resting on the nub of nerve endings and all the tension drains from her and she’s mewing with need and writhing even before he moves his hand. His other hand moves to hold her still, trapped against him: his hard erection, close to painful, pressing into her back.

“You get what I give you. My choice, my decision. All you do is listen, and comply. Ready?” and he thrusts two thick fingers up into her and out of her and simultaneously strokes his thumb across her, just once. It takes an instant before she gasps out _one_.

Eight strokes in she loses count. His wicked, evil fingers have hit exactly the right spot inside her every time and she’s barely able to form words, much less keep count.

“Start again, kitten.” Castle knows that every time he starts again it’ll take her less time to lose her place – and her control. He changes the rhythm of his strokes to take her slowly with his hand, gliding through soaked, heated flesh and over silky skin, and this time she’s moaning her count but she doesn’t make it past six and he can feel every tiny flutter and flicker in her muscles clenching round him and he knows she’s close.

The third time she comes before she’s got to four, shattering around his fingers and wholly lax against him, the cuffs and chain and his arm the only thing holding her upright.

Castle’s thinking that he’s made his point quite satisfactorily, when he realises that she still isn’t supporting her own weight. He rapidly unlocks the chain, balancing her body against him, lets her arms down, and repatriates himself and his kitten to the chair once more, dimming the lights almost to darkness as he goes, leaving only the small side lamp on. He curls her into his lap and examines her. She’s not just pale, but pallid. Okay. He’d intended to bring her to screaming, prove that he’s in control of her body and reactions and that she’s as defenceless against his skill as the kitten he’s called her would be against a full-grown lion, and then reward himself, and her, by taking her body with his and proving how good they are together: letting her see that her submission is simply, only, another route to pleasure.

Except she’s still limp and exhausted, and while she’s certainly come, at this point he’d be a lot happier if she would come back to some sort of life. For all her height and long-leggedness, at this point she’s a very small bundle in his arms.

Eventually her eyes open. For an instant he sees her panic, fail to recognise her surroundings or why she’s here; fail to realise why she’s curled up on his lap and close into him.

“Just a dream,” he purrs into her ear. “Just tonight’s dream. Stay put, kitten, where I’ve got you.” His arms close tightly around her, making his point. “You’re my kitten and my pet and I’ll take care of you.”   He strokes a hand across the collar, reminding her, and she relaxes out of the momentary fright, back into the mesmerising unreality in his words and his grip and this place. The velvet-over-iron certainty of his voice soothes her, tells her that she needn’t decide or think or do anything. It’s all up to him.

She comes a little further back to life, and realises that her owner is still very obviously unsatisfied. She looks up through long lashes and peeps at his darkened eyes, nestles in with a wriggle against the hard bulge. He looks down at her, and returns the lazy, slow smile of earlier.

“What do you want, kitten?”

“What you’ll give me.”

“And if I let you choose, what would that be?” He’ll make her complicit, again, she realises. “Tell me your dreams.” It’s no easier, this time, to say, as she looks at the chain trailing from her wrist, over her legs and down.

“I want to please you,” she manages. It’s so much simpler just to do as she’s told, to slide into the deep waters and drown. No choices, no decisions, no difficulties. Only consent and compliance.

She wriggles slightly, again, trying to slide from his lap to a place and position that she knows will please both of them, trying to show what she wants without having to speak. She doesn’t get anywhere, still wrapped in the strength that keeps her still, the warmth and force that has let her simply – stop. Here, there’s a still small centre, the calm eye in the midst of the hurricane. It too shall pass – but not quite yet. Still a dream, time out of time.

“You have to say it. You don’t get to move, you don’t get anything, till you ask.”   He’s gently implacable, holding her tightly against the firm muscle of his chest, hands entirely still as they prevent hers moving. “What do you dream?”

“Someone bigger,” she forces out, “someone… someone who owns me.” The words start to spill out. “Someone who’ll tell me what to do and let me not decide.”

Well. That’s interesting, and confirmatory. He can, and certainly will, provide that. But it’s not nearly enough, and though she’s been tired her seductive expression is indicating that they’re not done yet.

“What does he tell you to do?” he enquires, softly, insinuatingly. He’ll make all the decisions, here, but it’s rather helpful to know which direction those decisions might take for mutual enjoyment.

“To give in.” He waits, with an air of intimidating expectation that she will say more. And she does. “Sometimes he’s there when I come home, waiting, and he’ll strip me and kiss me hard and be rough but it’s all good…” She runs down. So far, so good. “He likes me tied down…” – likewise. She stops, and there’s no indication that she’ll begin again. In fact, Castle now doesn’t want her to. If she thinks much more, she might return to reality, and he really does not want that to happen yet. He has one more aim for the remainder of the evening, now slipping firmly into night, before he allows her to leave.

He loosens his arms, and she slips down, sliding easily to kneeling at his side, sitting back on her heels, the anticipatory light in her eyes belying the still-noticeable pallor of her skin against the dress.

“Give me your hands, pet.” He takes them, removes the trailing chain from her wrists and reattaches it to the necklace-collar, wraps it around his own hand as a makeshift leash, puts her hands down again. “I know what you want to do, but that’s not what I want. I want you to stand, take off your dress for me, and then go and lie down on the bed, as if you were alone.” His soft, lazy smile is dangerous.

He very nearly loses it completely when she takes the dress off over her head and stands naked and perfect for an instant: her skin the same clean pale ivory as finest marble, broken only by the colour of her hair and her eyes and mouth, the dark triangle at her legs as she lies down, curling on to her side and away from his view, a hand creeping round the pillow, one leg bent up, face hidden. Her whole posture is somehow defensive, childlike, keeping the nightmares away.

“Good girl,” Castle purrs. “Close your eyes” – and hope she doesn’t fall asleep on him: she seems so stressed and tired, but he’ll ease her stress and make her stop, and then she can sleep safe in his possession – “as if it were just you, alone in your apartment. You’ve had your bath and you’ve dreamed about your fantasy lover. Now you’re tired again, slipping towards sleep, naked against cool sheets and plump pillows.” She makes a soft little noise of contentment, and cuddles into the bed as he describes. Castle quietly undresses and slips on a condom in preparation. Once he begins again, he doesn’t want anything to break the mood or the flow.

“At first you think it’s another dream, a shadow looming over you in the dim light of the city through your blinds, but then a weight shifts the bed behind you and an arm pulls you over, on to your back. It’s your lover, come to you, hard and broad and strong and demanding.” He pulls her over as he’d just outlined, a little forceful, brooking no resistance. “He leans over you, takes your mouth because he has the right, pins your hands by your head so that all the power and pace is his to set. You can’t stop him, you can’t hold him to you to keep him.”

He bends down and takes her full mouth, lips already parted for him, a little slick of moisture where she’s passed her tongue across them, throws a heavy thigh over her nearest leg to stop her rolling into him – no chance she’ll roll away – plunders as he pleases (and oh, how he pleases: she tastes of sex and darkness and submission and heat and heaven) and insists on her surrender.

When he lifts off she protests.

“Come back. I want you.”

“No, kitten. Not up to you, is it? You know he won’t let you take charge, you know that it’s all up to him. No need for you to make a decision.” She settles again, reassured, he thinks, the small flexings of her body telling him that some way she’s eased. He’d love to strip the mask from her and see her face, not just her eyes, but it’s too soon for that still.

“Tonight, he’s not surprising you or playing rough or pretending that he’s forcing you. He’s not pinning you up against the door or the wall, or demanding that you kneel naked and wet and ready for whatever he may do. Tonight, it’s all about a different form of submission: a simple acceptance of his right to have you give in, obey, accept, admit his right to control you and own you and discipline you. You know you want to, you know you need to, you know you will. Tonight, no more games, no toys, just him.”

She has to see this, to understand that he owns her in every way: soft and gentle or hard and rough or wholesale authority and dominion – but always he in command and she – not. Not here, behind a door that separates them from the everyday world.

“He takes your unresisting hands above your head, needing only one of his; uses his now-freed hand to trace over your lips, press a finger into your wet, waiting mouth, let you wantonly suck and twist your tongue over it. He likes your mouth: that hot, wet, wicked, wanton mouth; he likes you kneeling before him, taking him in: his hands in your hair to hold you in place as he takes that oh-so-willing mouth.” She moans and tries to move.

“But not tonight. Tonight, he’s imprisoned only your hands with his, reminding you that he can always, easily, overpower you” – he might want to prove that, sometime: she doesn’t yet know that in fact he can – “and letting his other hand roam.” He kisses her again, hard, and runs his free hand over her shoulder to cup her breast, stroking and palming and moulding and then rubbing over her nipple, instantly hard and erect under his thumb. Just as he had done earlier, his movements will mimic the story, draw her in and drag her down till she can’t tell the truth from the tale, till she can’t distinguish the dream from the daytime. And when she can’t, she’ll fall into his snare. She won’t protect herself, but he’ll entrap her in his strength, and she’ll find surcease there.

She tries to squirm, and he leans more firmly over her, plays some more, till his kitten is pushing at him and mewing frantically and tugging against his ruthless grip; till her eyes are hot and hazed with desire and need and there’s no more stress.

“Your lover’s hand slides down to push your legs apart, leaving you wide open to him.” Castle taps the inner face of her free thigh, and she obediently spreads. “When he touches you, he knows that you’ve been disobedient. You knew he’d know: he always knows, and now you’re anticipating the next step.” She arches into the pressure of his firm fingertips, mew turning to moan as he plays a little through the slick folds and heat. “You’re so hot and wet, kitten. Far more than just his current touch would cause. The way you’re reacting, how sensitive you are, your little gasps and moans and noises, how quickly he’s brought you right back to the edge and desperate for him: oh, he knows that you’ve already come without his permission. The question is” – his voice drops to an ominous, predatory growl that resonates through his chest and into her bones – “how will he punish you for your disobedience?”

He stops there, takes the chain from where it was lying on the pillows, runs its end from her collar down through the valley of her cleavage, her sternum, circles it around her navel and down to lie forebodingly against her soaked core. She remembers what he’d said, how he’d described how he would run the chain from collar to drop between her legs and then back up, taut, so that with every move she made it would flex and rub and send her wild. But he doesn’t press it in, or pull it tight against her, though the potential and promise is there in the cool metal gleaming against her lithe body. She gasps, and feels a deeper pool of moisture gather.

“Whatever he decides, you’ll know you deserve it, and you know you’ll enjoy it. You have to know that your lover has complete control; that he’ll set the boundaries and discipline you should you transgress.” He’s still speaking in that dark, portentous growl.

“What do you think, kitten? Should he punish you? Do you deserve it?” He shifts the chain slightly, and it rubs over her. She moans and tries to turn into him, to escape the teasing, tantalising touch of chain and fingers. She knows that she deserves punishment for disobedience: she knows that admitting it will allow her to reach for the pleasure in submitting to another, but yet he’s still filling her ears and senses with that dark, commanding tone, telling her how she thinks, and how she should be: matching her thoughts with his words.

“You won’t be happy unless you accept your disobedience and punishment. You need to understand that he constrains you, and that he sets your limits: that you’ve given up all control to him. That means that if you’re naughty, there are” – his voice turns velvet soft – “consequences.” He smiles slowly down at her where she lies open, flushed and sweat-sheened, soaked and shuddering with sheer desire; and doesn’t cease to stroke and slide and toy with the chain against her. “You knew you were being naughty, didn’t you, and you went ahead and did it anyway.”

“Yes. I’m sorry.” She’s so deep in the story that she can’t tell the difference between the dream-lover and the very real man looming above her.

“Don’t you deserve your punishment?”

“Yes,” she breathes. “Please.”

“Then it’s up to me. Just the way you need and want it.” She doesn’t even notice the change from _he_ to _I_ , lost in his words.

He slides the chain taut against her, and she moans. Suddenly he removes it, locks it through both bracelet-cuffs and hooks it over the point of the bedstead, leaving her stretched out and both his hands free. Lust pools in her eyes.

“You shouldn’t have touched yourself, you shouldn’t have come. It’s me who touches you; it’s only me who lets you come. I own you: you’re mine to do with as I please. You disobeyed and pleased yourself, and now I’m going to please myself. You’ll just have to wait, and wonder. Maybe I’ll let you come again later, and maybe I won’t. Right now, you won’t.”

He rises up over her, slides through the wet heat as she opens wider to him, and thrusts home hard, surprising a desperate, needy cry from her.   She’s so tight and so hot and so willing he can’t resist it and he moves once, twice, thrice without otherwise touching her so she hovers on the edge but it’s not enough to let her fall, while he takes his own release in the white heat and rush of her beneath and around him.

She whimpers with unsatisfied need as he withdraws. “You can’t touch,” he points out, idly. “I won’t touch. You’re going to stay like this until I choose to change it.” He gazes hotly down at her. “Why did you disobey?” She whimpers again, and doesn’t answer. “Answer, kitten.”

“You weren’t there,” she blurts: she doesn’t know, and can’t distinguish, between the story, this dream-evening, and reality; between the vision he’d created as he stroked her on his lap or his words now or her solitary fantasies in her lonely apartment. It’s all one continuum. Whichever point it was, he (unspecified he: she also can’t distinguish between the dream-lover he’s created for her or the hard man above her) wasn’t there to fill and fulfil her.

“So I should have been there?” Castle purrs darkly. “If I were there more often you’d be more obedient?” _Just a little further, kitten. Just one more step. Come to me_.


	10. Death or glory

“Yes. Please.” She’s not aware of what she’s admitting to, or what she’s asking.

“I’ll tell you when you need me, won’t I? Because it isn’t your decision, is it? I know better than you what you need, and you’ll accept and like it.   Whatever I do. It’s not up to you.” She shakes, then nods, her head, desire still written in each curve and angle of her body.

“It’s not up to me,” she repeats, and her smile is wholly relieved. “You tell me.” _Got you_. She moves, sensuously, and he’s hard again, rolls away to swap out the condom for a fresh one. No risks. Not of that sort, anyway. He’s taken a different risk, tonight, and pulled it off.

She curves in against him, still fettered from collar to hands to headboard, and he moves her slightly up the bed so that there’s some slack in the chain and then gathers her in close, holding her motionless so that she can feel the hard truth of his physical need.

Simply being pinioned against the hard pressure is bringing her higher again: any lingering tiredness swamped by the endorphin rush of her previous orgasm and the comfort of blind obedience. He’ll tell her what to do and who to be and tell her when she’s to be his, and she’ll never have to worry about it. All she needs to do is to do as she’s told, and if sometimes she doesn’t, well, that’s all part of the dream.

She likes this dream.

She likes it even better when he starts to talk again.

“Now that we’ve established that I’ll tell you when you’ll be with me, I’m going to show you the reasons you should obey. You’ve seen what happens when you don’t do what you’re told: you don’t come. Next time, you’ll wait for much longer.   I can make you wait for days, keep you close to the edge all the time and never let you down. You’ll beg for me to let you come: you’ll mew and whimper and plead with me. You’ll do anything I tell you, if only I’ll give you release.   I’m going to show you what it would be like.”

He starts with her breasts, first with hands moulding and then rolling the nipples, then small nips and wet licks, then sucking. Then he stops, and waits for her breathing to slow. Then he starts again, harder, more demanding, stops and kisses her till she’s breathless and moaning once more. “How do you feel, kitten? How does it feel to know that I could give you much more and I won’t?”

“Please. Don’t do this.” But it’s the game. If she didn’t want it, she’d safe-word out, and she’s enjoying this far too much to do that.

“I told you not to come and you did that,” he says reasonably. “So why shouldn’t I do this?” His hands and mouth return to her breasts till she’s wordless and writhing and he’s pinning her down with his weight and bulk to keep her in place.

“How do you feel now?” He runs one fast, hard fingertip between her legs, and she bucks and pulls against the bonds.

“Please don’t. _Please_ let me come.   Don’t make me wait.”

“Tell me.”

“You own me.” He sketches another fast, hard line. “Please,” she moans.

“That’s right. I own you. I own your actions and reactions and your hot, wet body. You belong to me and you don’t get anything that I don’t give you.” Another line, a little slower, a circle at its end over the hard nub and she screams, so close and so desperate, wetter than she’s ever been and he’s playing her like an instrument and she can’t escape, can’t stop him, can’t come because he won’t let her and she needs him so badly inside her and he won’t let her have that either.

“Please, sir. Please stop. I can’t…”

“You will.” He spreads her wider and holds her legs apart and bends to take her with his mouth and all she can manage is a stream of _please_ and whimpers and then… he simply stops, sits back, rakes her with that blazing, predatory gaze as she squirms and writhes and can’t do anything about it.

“Now do you understand? If you’re disobedient again you’ll feel like this for days.” He unclips the chain from her wristlets and traces it down her form. “I’ll wind you up like this and then I’ll make sure you stay there even if I’m not near you.”

He lifts her without effort and slips the chain through her soaked core, pulling it against her. Her eyes go wide and her pupils are wholly dilated and huge and she’s pleading, begging _no don’t do that please don’t leave me like this please please no_ and every time she shifts so much as an inch it rubs and he’d told her and she’d felt it even when it wasn’t there but now it is and _fuck_ it’s everything and more and the whole world is limited to the pressure between her legs and she hears a click and _fuck no_ he’s locked it on _please no please don’t do this please I can’t_ and all he does is sit and watch her writhe and beg and _you own me please I won’t do it again please I’ll do what you tell me_ it feels _so damn good_ and this is everything she wants and needs and there are no more words, simply sensation and desire and being held to incoherent pleading.

“Imagine being like this for even an hour, kitten. That’s what will happen.” She can. _Oh fuck_ , she can. “Have you learned your lesson?”

“ _Yes. Please_ , I get it. I won’t do it again.” She’ll tell him anything, if he’ll only let her come at the end of it. But it feels so good and she’s so ready and she’s clenching around emptiness and nothing at all is up to her any more and she doesn’t have to think or act or be in charge or anything. So she might just disobey again because her punishment feels _so damn good_ and is it really punishment if she feels like this? She’s never been so hot and so wet and so excited and so aroused and _oh god_ she likes this dream and the chain rubbing as she twists and him watching her with the metal trailing down her body and up again.

“Hmm. We’ll see about that,” he says sceptically, but unlocks one end and relieves the exquisite torture just before it’s all too much. Metal is briefly replaced by fingers, followed by a possessive, satisfied rumble. “So wet and open, just for me. Shall I let you have what you want?”

“Please, let me. Please.” She’s so empty and still fluttering around nothing and she needs it and _please, please_ surely he won’t deny her now?

“You don’t deserve it, though. You were naughty.” His tone is darkly teasing, the potential for denial creeping through his words. His fingers press and play and balance her on the edge and hold her poised there. She can’t object, or plead, or beg now. She can’t form words. He carries on. “But _I_ want it. I’m going to take you and possess you and feel you shatter screaming around me.”

He looms over her, wide and heavy and wholly in control: she can feel him hard and thick and dominating and he holds her hands down and prevents her moving and pushes into her slowly so she’s screaming and he’s so big but she’s so ready that it feels just perfect and all she knows is that this time he doesn’t stop and she catapults into the dark void of shattering release.

When she wakes up she is, once again, wrapped in with the arm around her holding firmly and obviously to the chain, proof positive that she’s the pet he calls her. This time, she lets herself stay in the dream surrounding her, hiding from reality in the cave of his clasp. This is only a dream, and she doesn’t need to wake up yet.

Reality can wait till she gets home.

She doesn’t notice – or want to notice – that she’s moved away from the horrified terror of the last occasion and of her own needs and desires, to allowing them to be satisfied in a strictly defined and confined context. She _also_ hasn’t noticed that she’s handed Castle permission to tell her when these…interludes… will happen. Because right now all that she can see is that, for the first time in weeks she’s lost her stress and tension and she really believes that she might sleep properly and be _rested_.

She closes her eyes and accepts the soft embrace of aftercare, cossetted and petted and perfectly content to be owned and stay in her dream.

Castle looks at his armful of relaxed, sleeping (or as close as makes no difference) pet, cuddled up against him, still with the accoutrements of his ownership around her neck and wrists. _His_. He’s taken some major steps forward tonight, though he strongly doubts that Beckett has realised it. She hasn’t fled, however; she hasn’t spooked and safe-worded out. Telling her it was only a dream that wouldn’t be real tomorrow has clearly worked – but now he has to convert that into more than just a dream. She has to recognise that – behind an outer door – it doesn’t need to be a dream. Not with him. He’ll keep her secrets. He’ll keep _her_ secret. Everyone else can have badass Beckett, but only he will have the kitten. Nobody else will ever have his kitten.

He thinks back with a considerable measure of satisfaction. Leave aside the first – episode: that random twist of fate and then that equally random rediscovery. Look instead at the first, and now this second, time. She’d run herself into the ground: overstressed and burning herself out; he’d – none too subtly, in fact not subtly at all – stepped in and ordered her to come to him, to submit, _not_ to be in charge – and instead of shooting him, she had capitulated. Hmmm. Maybe this won’t be quite as difficult as he had begun to think. Because she’s still here, still in his arms, still safe, and still. Stopped.

He ponders for a moment. His whole instinct is to continue to push the issue: to insist she unmasks, to demand that they stop using this secretive club and use one or other apartment, to begin exploring some of the stories and scenes he has told her, that he will tell her.

He loses his train of thought as he recalls how she’d looked: naked and chained and frantic and utterly, hopelessly, aroused.

This is _not_ a helpful thought. Because thinking it, all he wants is to own her again and again and again; to keep her for himself and never ever let her go, and if he continues thinking about fiercely ferocious alpha tiger-Beckett turning, under his will and words, into soft, submissive, pretty and pettable kitten-Kat he will tether her to the bed and not let her leave for a week.

This is _still_ not helpful.

What _is_ helpful, on the other hand, (that would be the hand spread over Beckett’s flat, taut stomach, holding her in) is to know that – one – he can order her to stop and submit, and she _did_ , and – two – she’s agreed that he can tell her when to stop and – he hopes – she will. She’ll find out that that statement wasn’t only a dream.

Okay. Settle for this much, here and now, and push further next time. Which will be soon. Right now, he’ll enjoy his pettable, provocative kitten. He tugs her closer and locks her in a possessive, protective grip.

Dreams are a wonderful thing. Especially when they come true.

After a while Beckett re-opens her eyes and stretches luxuriously within the firm grasp around her. She’s still in her dream: surrounded, enveloped, possessed and protected. She needn’t worry about her daily world of stress and violence, death and destruction and pain, for as long as this space of time extends. She can’t, though, see a clock. Reality begins to assert itself, no matter how hard she tries to ignore it. She doesn’t want reality, because as soon as it arrives she’ll need to shove all this back into its locked box and forget it ever happened.

She can’t afford to be anything other than wholly in command, once she’s back in reality. This will never have occurred. He will never have existed. He doesn’t exist. Only a dream lover, who’ll vanish in the harsh glare of the New York sodium streetlamps.

It’s only been a dream, and now it’s time to wake up.

Tension re-establishes itself in Beckett’s shoulders and back, and she starts to shift and separate herself from the enveloping form around her.

“Did I say you could move, or leave?” he growls in her ear. “You have to ask. You don’t ever simply leave without permission.” He hauls her hard back into him and exerts enough force that she isn’t going anywhere. She falls back into the game.

“Please may I leave now? I have to go home.”

Castle considers the options for saying _No_ , remembers that tomorrow is a working day, and gives in to unpleasant reality.

“You may, kitten.”

He carefully unlocks the bracelets and necklace, cleans up, dresses and places them safely in his pocket. By the time he’s dressed, the kitten is almost gone and in-control, alpha Beckett is back. Not, though, as tense as she has been. Not by a long way.

He walks out with her, and ensures she’s safely in a cab. That has the extremely convenient side-effect that he has now learned her address, which he notes down as soon as she’s out of sight. Then he wanders lazily back into the club, has a brief exchange with one of the staff, and wanders lazily back out again, jingling the chain cheerfully in his pocket as he heads for home; where he writes consistently, coherently and continuously until long into the small hours of the night. He’s perfectly in control of his writing, and he’s gradually being given control of Beckett too.

The next day Castle – again – doesn’t indicate by glance or gesture that he’s ever seen Beckett in any capacity other than Badass Beckett, beating up the bad guys without ever laying a finger on them. Unsurprisingly, Beckett is equally amnesiac. On the other hand, she hasn’t retreated back into hostile, frigid abhorrence and/or outright horror at his presence.

Dreams, it appears, stay safely in the private, unacknowledged recesses of your head, where you need never admit that they were real.

* * *

A few days go by. Nothing much happens at the Twelfth except paperwork, and the team takes the opportunity to clear their desks, take another run at cold cases and old cases, and in the case of Ryan and Esposito take the opportunity to improve their lives by the application of fermented vegetable matter dissolved in water – that is, beer – and friendly competition.

Beckett doesn’t. Sure, she’s leaving at end of shift, but she’s not having drinks with the team, and she’s certainly not evincing any desire to spend some quality, non-public time with Castle. He doesn’t like this lack of knowledge of her whereabouts, and likes less – Beckett being a skilled interrogator – that no matter what he asks he gets a non-committal, cheery, uninformative answer.

Castle’s curiosity, only ever under very fragile control, and as like to run off and get into trouble – get _him_ into trouble – as an untrained puppy, starts knocking firmly on the walls of his common sense. By the third day of paperwork and disappearing Beckett, it’s hammering with a baseball bat. By the end of the week, it’s taken a sledgehammer and turned any last nugget of sense – and self-preservation – into powder.

His curiosity has grown in inverse proportion to the progress of his writing, too. Paperwork is not inspiring at all, and for the first time in nearly five months, he’s struggling to put words on the page. Well. He’s struggling to put Nikki on the page. He could put another round of fast-selling, lucrative, X-rated down-load only stories out, under his untraceable pseudonym. (He knows a very useful guy, when it comes to fake identities.) That would be astonishingly easy, from a writing perspective. It would also be an astonishing betrayal. So that is not an option at all.

He has, in fact, two options. One is to give his dominant instincts free rein, to counterbalance his lack of inspiration. But he’s not sure that Beckett is sufficiently stressed to give in. The second is to indulge his curiosity and follow up her history. Hmmm. Sounds like a better plan, for now. Google is rather less likely to pull a gun on him than Beckett, and also if he pushes at the wrong moment he is perfectly certain that he will lose everything he’s so far gained.

So research Beckett’s history what he does. Google is, eventually, persuaded to labour mightily and bring forth a mouse – or at least disgorge a pathetically scanty amount of information. This is no real help, though at least it covers, in tabloid journalese, the basics. However. He’s getting on rather well with Ryan and Esposito, now that it’s clear he’s not simply the celebrity playboy that he’s made out to be. It’s time to turn all that beer into something a little more useful. If nothing else, a conversation with the boys will give him enough of an illusion of control that he won’t simply go round to Beckett’s apartment and explore that very brief and intriguing insight into her fantasies about being taken against a wall and/or surprised and taken roughly. Apart from any other considerations, he has none of the necessary items that she currently needs to allow herself to play the game. In particular, he doesn’t have either the collar or the masks he’d acquired from the club. The latter is vital to allow her to feel anonymous. The first is the circuit breaker that flips her from off to on, from tiger to kitten.

So, beers and bonhomie and then a discussion. Maybe that way he won’t need to find her late one night, very soon.

He doesn’t notice, consciously, that while all this time he’s been thinking about how she needs him, and how he’s going to be the one who gives her what she needs, that he is also more than beginning to need her.

 


	11. My doom is come upon me

Beckett has been – well. Hiding is _not_ an accurate description. Busy. That’s it. Busy. It was only a dream, and therefore it has no right to be perching in her mind and pecking at her nerves. So she buries herself in the endless stacks and screeds of paperwork – she _wants_ a murder, and she is very nearly ready to commit one herself if only it would preserve her from paperwork – and disappears with alacrity at the end of every day to go home and try to get the scent of male and cologne out of her nostrils before she actually resorts to amputating her nose.

Scent triggers memories – _No_! Daydreams. That’s all. Only a dream. She would start wearing perfume to work, to mask the scent, but that might raise questions she doesn’t want to answer. A week of – _daydreams, dammit!_ – triggered not only by scent but by size, shape and looming bulk always there beside her is putting considerable pressure on the seams of her over-full mental lock-box.

There is one place that will remove all taint of eau-de-memory-of-male from her errant nose. (Not, note, memory of Castle. Only a dream, and an anonymous lover.) She makes for the morgue, where the dominant aroma is not aftershave or cologne or eau-de-Castle – _No!_ – eau-de-dream-lover – but eau d’embalming fluid, and other substances too nasty to name.

Lanie is pleased to see Kate, if somewhat surprised, given that it’s only half an hour after her shift ended and around ten seconds till Lanie’s does.

“You’re early, girl.”

“Hey, Lanie, nice to see you too,” Beckett says sarcastically.

“That as well. Why’re you so early? Moon’s not out yet, stars aren’t twinkling, but you’ve stopped working.”

“Have you been sniffing your solutions again, Lanie, or have you found a new boyfriend?” Lanie makes a face at her.

“Cut the crap, Kate. I’ve not seen you leave this early since” – a delightedly evil expression spreads itself over Lanie’s face – “since you last found a man and wanted me to come shopping with you.”

Beckett glares at her. “No,” she snaps. “I have not found a man and I don’t want to go shopping.” Lanie looks disappointed.

“Naw. You haven’t been that sensible in three years. My ninety-year old grandma has a better sex life than you. Hell, these corpses have a better sex life than you.”

“You shouldn’t let Perlmutter in here out of hours,” Beckett says nastily. Lanie chokes on her words, splutters, and then looks hopeful again.

“You come for advice on how to catch a man? ‘Cause I got a guaranteed solution for you.”

Beckett looks resignedly at Lanie. Clearly Lanie is channelling Dr Ruth Westheimer and anyway the only way to stop her now is to suffocate her by shoving her face into the nearest open stomach cavity. Sadly, there do not appear to be any open cavities of any sort around here, unless you count the dead panhandler’s teeth.

“You need to put on a skirt, put on some lipstick and smile like you mean it, not like you’re sizing them up for a cell.”

“How’m I supposed to chase killers in a skirt?” Lanie smirks.

“Short enough skirt and they’ll be chasing you, Kate. You got legs from here to Delaware and you cover them up all the time. If I had legs like yours my skirt would be an inch below my ass and I’d have hot men coming out of my ears. And then I’d have a hot man coming” –

“Shut up, Lanie. I don’t wanna hear it.”

“Just ‘cause you don’t want to get any, doesn’t mean the rest of us live in a convent.”

“Lanie, you’d have been expelled from any convent,” Beckett snips. Lanie makes a dismissive gesture.

“Not important. What _is_ important is that you get out there.” She grins very nastily. “Or buy a substitute.” Beckett squawks, and blushes. Fortunately Lanie thinks it’s only because of her suggestion. “Not as cosy but they last a hell of a lot longer” – that’s not necessarily true, Beckett thinks, and her cheeks flare brighter – “and you don’t have to pretend they’re Super Stud afterwards either.” No. No pretending at all. _No_! It wasn’t real.

“Ugh,” Beckett grumbles.

“You need something. It’s like pierced ears. You don’t put something in it, it’ll close up.”

“Ugh, Lanie. _Enough_. I am not having this conversation any more. I am not having this conversation ever.”

“So why’d you come over then? And why this early? Did you shoot someone and you’re hiding out from IAB?” Maliciously amused realisation dawns on her face. “You are. Kate Beckett is _hiding_.” Oh God. Why has she got an intelligent friend? Who right now sounds like a triumphant five-year old. “You’re hiding.” Beckett almost expects her to singsong _nyah nyah n-nyaha_. “You’re hiding from Castle, aren’t you?”

“No,” growls Beckett. Lanie fixes her with an interrogative glare that Beckett had last been subjected to in the first week of pre-K when she’d poured paint all over Earl Delavoy’s head. Well, he’d tried to take _her_ colouring crayons. And they’d been four. It had all been perfectly justifiable. So is this.

“You are. You’re _scared_ ,” Lanie singsongs. “Fraidy cat.”

“Am not.”

“Are too. He’s interested and you’re scared.” She hums a snatch of song. It sounds very like _run rabbit run rabbit run run run_. It doesn’t improve Beckett’s mood. She emits a strangled noise and considers the provocation defence. “What’s your problem? At least take him for a spin. If nothing else, he’s rich enough to show you a really good evening.”

“Don’t wanna,” sulks Beckett, reduced in five minutes by Lanie to her four-year old self in front of the teacher. “He’s all over the gossip pages. No thank you.” Lanie fixes her with another intimidating glare.

“Really? You got any evidence that he’d splash you over page six? ‘Cause I don’t see any. I ain’t seen nuttin’” – she affects a broad Bronx accent – “you hear me? Nuttin’ – about him following you all around, except that he is. Notta word about any of us in two months.” She droops disappointedly. “I always wanted to be on page six in a glam gown and with a hot man.”

Beckett finds some game to distract – she hopes – Lanie. “You could always ask Castle to take you out and get you pictured on page six.” Lanie looks tempted. Very tempted. Beckett’s just congratulating herself on the idea when Lanie droops again. “Nah. It wouldn’t work. He’s too tall. I can’t walk in those stilts you wear. I’d look like a gnome.”

“You’d be the sexiest gnome in town, Thumbelina,” Beckett says evilly, and has to whisk herself out of the way of Lanie’s slap at her.

“Just ‘cause you’re tall enough to date NBA first string players without a ladder,” Lanie grumps. “Anyway, you should take my advice. Not that you ever do. Put on a short skirt, put on a smile and some lipstick, and take Castle for a hot spin between the sheets.”

She pauses for a minute to let Beckett stop fulminating. “Okay. So where are we going, Kate? Drinks or dress shopping?”

“Drinks. I am _not_ buying or wearing a dress or a skirt or anything but pants.” _Because you’ll remember when you last wore a dress. And what you didn’t wear. And why._

“Could work,” Lanie says thoughtfully. “If you didn’t wear any panties under them.”

“ _Enough_ , Lanie,” Beckett nearly yells. “I swear Castle bribed you. One more word about my sex life or Castle – who has nothing to do with my sex life” –

“Your sex _less_ life,” Lanie interjects.

“ – and I will make you pay for all the drinks and I will drink genuine imported single malt Scotch whisky all night.” Lanie mutters ominously, wholly unimpressed and unsuppressed, but shuts up.

Unfortunately, she doesn’t _stay_ shut up. Every guy that passes them who is taller than five-ten and doesn’t have any obvious diseases, Lanie nudges her and provides – Beckett really hopes that this is only speculation – commentary on their attributes and likely abilities. Eventually, Beckett finally puts a hand very firmly over Lanie’s mouth – it’s not a slap. Really not – to silence her.

“ _Stop_ , Lanie,” she says firmly. “You’ve made your point – for the last freaking hour. Now I’m going to make mine. No picking up passers-by. No one night stands with Castle. No one night stands with _anyone_. If you mention skirts, lipstick or sex again, I’m going to ram your purse down your throat.”

“Girl, if we can’t talk about clothes, make-up and sex, what are we gonna talk about? I’m not discussing money, religion or murder. It’s bad manners.”

“Vacations,” Beckett says quickly, before Lanie can choose the topic.

“You never take vacation. How are you gonna talk about vacations?”

“I might,” Beckett grumbles. “I might apply for the space programme so I don’t have to listen to my best friend telling me how to run my life.”

“Okay. Let’s talk about where we’d go if either of us won the lottery. I’d go to Tahiti.” Beckett raises an eyebrow. “Beaches, boys and banana daiquiris.” Beckett grins.

“You’re as deep as a puddle, Lanie.” Lanie grins cheerfully in return, eyes sparkling.

“Yep. Sun, sea and sex. Perfect.”

“I’d go to Europe. Vienna, maybe. Or Prague. All that history…”

The good natured argument which that statement provokes lasts all evening and not a few drinks.

* * *

When Beckett reaches home, a little fuzzy around the edges due to Lanie lining them up, one comment keeps nagging at her mind. _You got any evidence that he’d splash you over page six? ‘Cause I don’t see any_. She can’t believe that. She can’t rely on that. It’s sheer coincidence. But sliding into bed in her sensible, comfortable pyjamas, it’s still nagging.

In the shower in the morning, the thought has stopped nagging. Unfortunately, that’s because Beckett, like every day this week, has no case to think about, and just as has happened for the last three mornings, massaging in her moisturiser is doing nothing to keep her calm. She can’t forget the story – the dream – when he’d made her believe they were jointly rubbing it in and he’d brought her up and up and up and then used their joint hands to push her right over.

 _It was only a dream_.

She can do whatever she wants. None of it was real. None of it. This is not the scene he put her in. He’d never know. He wouldn’t. And even if he did, so what? It’s not as if he has the right to tell her not to. It was only a dream, a fantasy. But if she uses it again she’s giving it life and _this is still not who she is_. It was a dream, and she is far stronger than her dreams, and stronger than her desires, and whatever her fantasies say, this is not the time to indulge them. Besides which, it wasn’t a shower, it was a bath, and evening. She can wait. Just like she’s waited every morning, and every evening put it off again. Because she is stronger than that. (And it’s not because he told her not to. Not at all. That was only the dream.)

And she has absolutely no reason, early in the morning before the boys or Castle are in, to run a search on the last two months’ gossip (and all other) press to see whether what Lanie said is correct. But she does, anyway. And _dammit_ Lanie was right. Not one single solitary word.

He holds her life and reputation in his hands and she’d thought he was as discreet as a radio shock jock – yet not one single word about the public side of his shadowing her has been said. Hmm.   And hmm, again, because she has been more relaxed this week than in months. Then, she’s always better as the summer approaches, more able to cope, more able to go out with the team and/or Lanie and de-stress. It’s only in those dark days in January when she can’t bear it: as another year has passed with no answers and no hope. _For lo, the winter is passed, the rain is over and gone_.

So maybe it’s not him at all. Maybe she’ll not need it again. Quiet and controlled and unemotional: a peaceful transition into the summer. But the occasions have been closer together, and she’s needed it more and resisted less each time, giving in to her dark addiction and the demand that she submit. She shouldn’t need it.

But it had felt so good, and she wants it all over again.

Her reverie is snapped by Espo.

“Yo, Beckett. We got anything but desks to look at yet?”

“No,” she confirms disgustedly. “Nothing.” Espo looks mildly relieved. “What’s up, Espo? Heavy night?”

“Yeah. I need coffee and quiet.” He wanders off. Shortly afterwards Ryan wanders in, looking pale and wincing at the fluorescent strip-lighting of the bullpen.

“Heavy night, Ryan?” Beckett asks mischievously.

“Urrgh.” He wanders off, too. Beckett concludes, perfectly correctly, that they’d been out together, sinking beers and shooting pool in a sports bar somewhere.

It’s just as well she doesn’t know the rest of last night’s story.

* * *

Beckett having disappeared at end of shift faster than a scalded cat, Castle has free rein to persuade the boys out for beer. Very little persuasion is needed, and they all happily agree on a sports bar. Under the influence of a considerable and continual supply of beer, the three men move away from talking about the game on the screens and into their various pasts. Neither Ryan nor Esposito have noticed that Castle is very gently directing the conversation.

Castle is as keen as the next man on baseball, football and basketball, that is to say moderately, though he confesses to never having had much opportunity to play. Itinerant theatre people don’t tend to join Little League, he says ruefully.

“I did,” says Ryan, a little tentatively.

“Never did that either,” Espo says. Now that’s a surprise. Castle would have thought that Espo had played every game in sight. Matters are made clearer when he admits to public-park basketball, and, rather indirectly, to a history that isn’t exactly squeaky clean.

“Joined the army,” he says. “Back in the day. Straightened me out. Found I could shoot straight. Special Forces took me on, I became a sniper.” Castle looks, and is, impressed.

“When’d you join the NYPD?”

“After my last tour in Iraq. I’d had enough. The fighting was over an’ I didn’t wanna be on base all the time gettin’ bored and polishing my rifle; likely fucking up my life again.” He looks back into memory. “Did my time in uniform, applied for Homicide and got it. Thought I’d made the biggest screw-up of my life – an’, shit, I’d made plenty of those – when I found I’d be working with a girl.”

“Beckett?”

“Beckett,” Espo confirms. “Couldn’t believe I’d have to listen to a girl, a little younger than me. No way she could relate to the mud and the blood. I thought she was just playin’ at the job, with her uptown accent and clean clothes. I’d been on the front line and she’d been to school.” He winces, in remembrance. Neither Castle nor Ryan says anything at all: Ryan because though he’s heard this story before it still resonates; Castle because he is very deeply interested. Espo carries on.

“The first week or two didn’t go so good. I thought I knew it all because I was Army. Thought that her playin’ nice was because she didn’t really know what the fuck she was doin’. Din’t realise she was already two, three years a Detective, din’t realise she was five years younger ‘n me. She had that old look in her eyes, like she’d seen things. Shoulda recognised it straight off the bat, but I was so pissed that I was second to a hot chick from uptown I din’t look. Din’t realise that Montgomery was watchin’ to see how she’d deal with me, either. He’d put me with her on purpose. Sneaky sonofabitch.”

Castle suddenly remembers that he’d been extremely surprised at Montgomery’s lack of argument when he’d wanted to shadow Beckett. Hmm. Sneaky sonofabitch, eh? That’ll repay some thought.

“So a coupla weeks in a body drops, an’ we get the call. Down in Alphabet City. Nothin’ special.” He drops out of memory and into the present. “We didn’t get every weird one goin’ then. That came later.” He shakes his head. “So I get there and Beckett’s kneeling by the body an’ I start lookin’ round the room, an’ she says ‘What the hell are you doing, Esposito?’ So I say I’m detectin’, like she oughta be, ‘stead of just staring at a corpse – an’ boom! She lit up like a rocket. Ain’t never seen anythin’ like it. She ordered me out – an’ I din’t dare disobey – an’ then she reamed me out like my old drill sergeant, ‘cept he’da been gentler. Fuck, she was scary. She ripped me a new one – felt like two – told me if I couldn’t look at the corpse and start with the victim I was no use to her an’ I could get back to poundin’ the streets.”

He pauses, and from the expression on his face Castle guesses that there’s more to this story.

“Anyway. So I listened, an’ I learned. But I was still pretty pissed at her, tellin’ me what to do an’ how to do it. She gave it two days, closed the case. Then she ordered me into Interrogation, and ripped me a new one again. Told me just ‘cause I’d killed in the Army, seen dead men on the sand, didn’t mean shit. Told me when I’d seen someone close to me murdered, then I’d have the right to argue. Till then, I was to shut up and learn. I… sorta lost it a bit. Told her she’d got no fuckin’ idea about death, she’d never seen it. Well, shit. That was a helluva mistake. I felt lower than dirt when she said her mother’d been murdered, an’ worse when she said the killer wasn’t found. But she wasn’t done with me. Said if I din’t think she was up to the job I could watch her shoot an’ then we’d spar. Thought she was jokin’. Her? Spar ‘gainst me? She had no hope.”

Castle wonders about that. Clearly she’d have lost. But…

“So she shot. Nothin’ like I can, but pretty hot shit. Okay, so that wasn’t so surprisin’. Lotta women c’n shoot. It was the sparrin’. Sure, she lost. But I had to work a bit. More ‘n I expected, specially since I’m down the gym every day.” Castle is unsurprised. He also suspects that Espo would be surprised to know that so is he.

“So. Wasn’t all fixed, but we had a truce. I was still a bit pissed, but I did what she told me, watched and learned. Fuck, did I learn. She never stopped. Never stops. When she wasn’t investigating, she was trainin’. Took me a while to work out that when she wasn’t investigatin’ our cases, she was lookin’ at her own.” A-ha. This is what he wanted to know. “Then one day it stopped. ‘Bout three, four years ago. Just when Ryan came on the team. By then we’d been tight coupla years. Shit-hot, too.”

“Came in from Narcotics,” Ryan explains. “Cap’n there said Homicide was short, anyone wanna volunteer, there was a team there needing an extra man. He was lookin’ straight at me. I was getting tired of that life. Too much undercover.” Baby-faced Ryan was _undercover_ for Narcotics? He’s a hell of a lot tougher than he comes across. And – exactly who had decided that Beckett’s team needed an extra man?

Castle is suddenly sure that it wasn’t a coincidence that Ryan had joined the team at pretty much exactly when Beckett stopped investigating her mother. Certain matters suddenly become perfectly clear. Montgomery is the ultimate in sneaky sonsabitches, clearly. He’d put in Espo to test Beckett, as well as Espo. God knows why, or how, he’d seen that it would gel. But he obviously had. At some point, he’d decided to force Beckett off her mother’s case and into somewhat more rest – and he’d done it by bringing in Ryan. Which leaves Castle with the extremely intriguing problem of what Montgomery was, or is, hoping to achieve by bringing in him, Castle. Because it’s clear that that sneaky sonofabitch has a plan of his own. It’s _also_ clear that Montgomery is a first-class man – or woman – manager. Hmm. An interesting conversation is looming in Montgomery’s future, though he doesn’t know it yet. Castle is not notably keen on being manipulated without his active connivance and consent. Easy-going he may be (outside the bedroom) but not _that_ easy-going.

“Dunno what happened. One day she’s spending every spare hour in Archives, next day she wasn’t.” Espo runs down, having said far more than Castle’s ever heard him say and far, far more than he’d expected.

“Was she always like she is now?” Castle asks, delicately. “All cool and collected? She never seems to get upset or angry or anything.”

“She’s always been like that since I’ve been here,” Ryan says. “It’s scary. Doesn’t matter how bad it is, she’s never fazed. Some of the guys, they shout and yell when they go punch the bag. She never does. Hits it hard, but nothing else. Never seen her lose it.”

“She used to get riled up. Had a coupla bad ones, she got a bit upset. Hell, I got a bit upset,” Espo says quickly, as if he has to defend Beckett being upset. “Since she stopped looking, nothing. ‘S like she put up a wall.”


	12. The shadow of death

Castle hums encouragingly and signals another round of beers. Ryan starts to get into the conversational mix.

“Beckett never loses it. Doesn’t matter how bad or how weird the cases are.”

“Seems like you get all the weird ones?”

“Yeah. They call them Beckett-flavoured now. Word got around that she’s” – he searches for a word, and Castle waits quietly until he finds it – “got an affinity for oddities.” Castle likes that phrase, though he’s sure that Ryan didn’t deliberately use it. “She’s clever. So we started getting more and more of the tricky ones. Now that’s pretty much all we do, and there’s enough of them to keep us flat-out busy.” He chugs back a large mouthful of beer. “We don’t get any easy cases, but we don’t get any slack cut either. We gotta solve ‘em as fast as the next team, and if we don’t then Beckett’s the one standing first in line.”

Castle raises an eyebrow at that, and Esposito jumps in. “Montgomery takes the hit from 1PP, but Beckett don’t cut _herself_ any slack, an’ she just pushes harder and harder.” Hmm. That’s interesting.

“You said she just stopped looking at her own case, same time Ryan joined the team, and ever since then nothing’s upset her? But even though Ryan’s here to take some of the load, she’s still working really hard?”

The boys nod, firmly. “ ‘S it, bro.”

Castle swigs his own beer to give himself time to think. He has an idea. It is, however, a very risky play. _Nothing ventured, nothing gained._ Or alternatively, _faint heart never won fair lady_. He takes another gulp. While he’s drinking, Espo and Ryan continue the conversation.

“Shame they never caught the sleazebag who did it,” Ryan says, in a tone that indicates that the boys have had this conversation before.

“Yeah.” But Esposito’s tone says there’s more to say than Castle knows, and under the influence of significant amounts of beer his normal closed-mouth approach has failed. “Shame they didn’t do a proper investigation. ME’s report was crap.” Castle’s ears prick up. “No wonder she never got away from it. We’d never let Lanie Parrish off with that.”

“I know a pathologist,” Castle says innocently. He does. He knows the best pathologist in the city, one Dr Clark Murray. They’ve been friends a while.

“Do you? How come?”

“Research. I wanted to know what happened if you microwaved a head.”

Ryan and Esposito look absolutely fascinated: for a moment all three of them are back to little boys playing with frogspawn and poking anthills and delighted by fake blood.

“You microwaved a _head_? What happened?” the boys chorus in happily expectant unison. Castle grins.

“It was a pig’s head.” Espo looks a little disappointed. Ryan looks relieved. “It exploded. Brains everywhere.” He looks briefly unhappy. “Clark made me clean the morgue microwave, though.” He returns to a wide grin. “It took ages to explode, though. I thought it would be really quick, but when nothing happened we just kept trying till something did. And then it exploded all over the inside of the microwave without any warning at all. It took _hours_ to clean.” His resemblance to a naughty little boy caught out strengthens, telling his chums about the iniquity of adults.

“Microwaved heads, huh?” Esposito says with some admiration. Ryan is looking a touch greenish, undercover history or not.

“Yeah,” Castle bounces. “It was great. And I got a whole chapter out it.” He returns to the original point. “Anyway, that’s how I know a pathologist. He let me microwave a pig’s head and then helped me work out how a human head would be different. He helps me out any time I need to research something medical.” He forcibly stops himself saying anything else at all. He doesn’t want anyone to remember that this was his idea.

Some more beer is consumed. Esposito has a painfully constipated expression which might indicate that he’s thinking. Ryan is clearly thinking. Castle is biting his tongue.

“If you know a pathologist, Castle” – _yes!_ – “an’ I got you in to look at the file” – _perfect, just perfect_ – “d’you think he’d have a look?”

“I don’t know. I could ask him, I suppose?” He sounds doubtful. It’s entirely acting. Clark Murray will do this for him. They’ve had a lot of fun researching, since the head. This is just a little more serious.

“I think you should,” Ryan says, suddenly. The other two men flick round to stare at him.

“You think?” Ryan nods, firmly.

“Yeah.”

“Why, bro?” Esposito sounds more confused than enquiring.

“C’mon, Espo. You know as well as I do that she’s always wired up now. If we could find something, might bring her down a bit.” Esposito furrows his forehead.

“You think? I thought she’d mostly been better since Christmas.” He shrugs. “Whatever. If you think it’s a good idea too, we’ll do it.” His voice changes into his normal (if slightly beer-fuddled) precinct definitive tone. “Okay. Castle… Castle!”

“Huh? Yeah?” Castle had completely lost track of the conversation the instant Esposito had said _better since Christmas_. That was _better_? Beckett must have been an absolute disaster before, then, because he’d thought that she couldn’t be worse than she had been, except when he’d – oh. Ah. _Better since Christmas_ , huh? That’s not coincidental either.

“Pay attention, Castle. I’m gonna get you into the file, you copy it, and then you pass it to your pal. ‘Kay?”

“Okay. But what if Beckett finds out?” That’s a genuinely terrifying thought. That will get all three of them eviscerated and strung up on the revealed intestines. After that she’ll really get creative about inducing pain.

“You’re on your own there. Make sure she doesn’t, if you like your balls where they are.”

When Beckett disappears after shift the next day without more than a hurried goodbye, Esposito escorts Castle into Archives, sits him down, and leaves him to it. Some time later, little more enlightened than he had been, Castle leaves with a thick wad of papers, calls Clark Murray, and delivers him the bundle, keeping a further copy for himself.

* * *

There’s no time to study the papers, or indeed to pester Dr Murray for answers, for the next week. This case isn’t merely Beckett-flavoured, it’s found a tank of liquidised, concentrated Beckett and marinated itself in it for a month or so. Voodoo, passport scams, fakes on Canal Street. Perfect. Well, nearly. He could have done without his ex. Still, she’s relatively easily managed, though unhappily difficult to control properly. A promise that he’ll call a friend in Hollywood and recommend her, then provision of free use of his platinum card, and she leaves him alone, though not before she pulls Alexis out of school and then shows up in the precinct. Otherwise, it’s all going great.

Until the bad guy starts shooting. That is definitely not great. Tackling Beckett to the floor might be very arousing (for both of them, at least on the basis of her stuttered sentence about fantasies) but not with real bullets added in. Fortunately, the only person who gets shot is the criminal, which Castle is perfectly well aware is not always the case.

Beckett is – at least to Castle’s eyes – surprisingly sanguine about the whole thing. He’d expected her to be shaken up, as she had been after kneeling next to the nanny with the knife. Except she isn’t. She shrugs it off as if it’s just another day in the bullpen with a pile of papers, which coincidentally is what she spends the rest of shift dealing with. The boys are equally content that she’s okay.

It doesn’t occur to him until some considerable way into the evening, long after he’s gone home, exchanged sharp-edged bickering with his mother, compliments with Alexis, had dinner and gone to stare at his blank page and eventually outline a rather scrappy set of thoughts for his next chapter, that Beckett might not have been quite as calm as she had pretended, and by that time it ought to be far too late to do anything about it.

If only he didn’t have her number stored in his phone and her address imprinted on his brain, never mind his contacts list, it might have been.

* * *

Beckett is self-medicating with a very hot and very bubbly bath, and a glass of wine.   It’s not the first, nor yet the second, glass. The first, and the second, had accompanied her dinner, which had been extremely limited on vegetables or greenery and extremely heavy on carbs and chocolate. Consolation food. The wine, on the other hand, is to block out the memory of the afternoon and to stop her doing something very, very stupid.

She is _not_ going to call Castle and ask him to meet her, masked and anonymous and he wholly in charge. She doesn’t need him. She doesn’t need the dream. She just needs time, and space, and peace, and soft, calm, soothing actions. She doesn’t need to remember him crashing into her, taking her down, just for an instant his large frame over her, pressing her into the floor… Protective and predatory at the same time. The disconnect between the two sensations isn’t helping her any. She has another sip of wine, savouring the flavours, taking it slowly, calmly: no hurry, no need to hurry.

But her skin is still prickling and her mind is repeating the take-down on endless loop: just those ten seconds when a big, broad man slammed into her and pitched her over and landed on top of her and pinned her down. If the gun hadn’t fired… If it hadn’t been reality…

She’s wet just thinking about it, too close to the fantasy that he’d threatened, or promised, to explore; and her bath is not helping. It only reminds her of the last time, and the story-scene. She surges out the tub, incapable of staying in for a moment longer, and turns to the last resort. She’s out the door in instants, i-Pod earbuds in, phone and gun with her. They’re always with her. Maybe she shouldn’t be running after two and a half glasses of wine, but the carb load will carry her for miles, and it’s not yet dark. Not quite. She switches on, and starts to run.

She’s still running an hour later, pacing herself on the beat of the music, searching for exhaustion that she hasn’t yet found, beginning to wonder if she needs to circle around to the precinct and punch the bag for a while. Running isn’t working, maybe sparring will. Drinking won’t – it already hasn’t: it just lowers her inhibitions and pushes her further towards stupid. But it’s full dark now, and she’s down on the Lower East Side, under FDR Drive and very near the BrooklynBridge. This is not a good place to be, when she’s fragile. She was last here on January 9. And then she did something utterly insane, and then the bird of prey came home to roost three months later. And it’s still circling: falcon soaring, watching a mouse. So this is just as close to stupid as her other instinct: the one she had ignored; the one that isn’t leaving her mind.

She curves westward, back towards the city lights: turning to Wall Street and the financial district, lights still blazing in the skyscrapers. Those buildings never sleep. A bit like her, really; though she hopes that she does something of more import. She’s only taken a few steps in that direction when her phone rings.

“Beckett.” She’s not on call, and not on duty. No-one should be calling her, tonight, and annoyance suffuses her tone. There’s a short pause, while a heavy truck rolls past.

“Beckett, where on earth are you?” She looks up to the street sign.

“Corner of South and Wall Street. What’s it to you?”

Castle looks at the phone in utter disbelief. What the _fuck_ is she doing down there in the dark, alone? He becomes aware that her breathing is elevated. “Beckett, are you running?”

“No, I’m talking to you.” _Jackass_ is very audible at the end of that sentence. As is _but I won’t be in a second._

“Ha. Ha. Very funny. Why are you running down there on your own late at night?”

“Because I wanted to go fishing from the South Street Seaport. Bye.”

Castle’s pent-up desires, fuelled on nearly two weeks of no inspiration and therefore no control of his writing, accelerated by his not-yet dispersed irritation at the wholly uncontrollable Meredith and the consequent need to make an effort to dispose of her, crash over his entirely receptive head. He leaves a brief note for his mother or Alexis, whoever reads it first, picks up only one item from his nightstand drawer, and relocates himself to the vicinity of Beckett’s apartment. He’s right back to the furious frustration that had driven him to the club over four months ago. He can’t believe that she would go out running and end up down under the highway, deep in the dark where the monsters lurk. That’s asking for trouble.

Well, if she wants that sort of trouble she can have it. With him and _no-one_ else: with a safe word and a stop point. Not this suicidal searching for exhaustion down in the dark, with no limits and no safety.

It’s a few more minutes before he spots her loping up the street, whisks himself into her unsecured building and takes the stairs rather than the elevator to her floor. He’s waiting in the shadow of the stairwell when she exits said elevator and bends to put keys in her lock.

When the door starts to swing open, he pounces. “Still _Siamese_?” he whispers dangerously in her ear.

“Yes,” she breathes in return, and sinks into the scene without a cry for help. Perhaps she’d always expected this, perhaps she’d somehow known he’d be there at the end after another chance to dance with Death, perhaps she’d known he’d see through her act.

He has the door shut and her pressed face to the wall beside it before she’s wholly realised what’s going on, that this is her fantasy, her dream, made reality; holding her with all his weight while he flings the collar round her throat, closes the tiny padlock, pulls her gun off and puts it aside, then removes her chain with its ring from her neck.

“You wanna go looking for trouble, kitten, you come to me,” he grates into her as he rips off her top and bra, still leaning on her, pinning her hands above her head once she’s stripped from the waist up. “I’ll give you all the trouble you can handle. You don’t go looking for it down on the docks.”

He bites her earlobe, sharply, and grinds into her. “This what you want? Down and dirty? You want it rough?” She mewls in frantic assent, and moves against him. “You want to be stripped and fucked right here, up against a wall?” His free hand grips the waistband of her shorts and pulls down, catching her panties on the way, stops when he’s revealed her, strong fingers moving to cup her, no gentleness.

“Fuck, you’re so wet. You want this.” In one fast motion her shorts and panties are gone and he kicks her feet apart. His hand is hard and demanding between her legs. He knows the words are doing it for her already.

“I want it,” she pleads. “Don’t stop.”

“I won’t stop,” he growls. “I’m going to fuck you till you scream and then fuck you till you can’t scream.” She’s impossibly wet, tight around his fingers and her muscles are clenching rhythmically and he takes his hand away and she whimpers at the loss. “You want it?” He’s rolling on the condom.

“I want it. Don’t _stop_!”

“When I’m done fucking you” – the rough language and position and touch is really doing it for her: she’s right on the edge and _shit_ if this is what her fantasies are like he’ll be fulfilling them every night for the rest of his life – “you’re going to apologise for running off.” His voice drops further, grating and gravelly and threatening. “On your knees, naked. And then you’ll take your consequences any way I choose. You don’t go looking for trouble anywhere but with me. You understand?”

“ _Yes_. Please, don’t stop. Fuck me.”

He’s inside her in an instant, huge and hot and hard and she’s already screaming on the first firm stroke: still no gentleness, no consideration. She wants to be _fucked_ , not anything else, and she wants it rough and dirty and him to use all his size and strength as if he were able to force her. (But he hasn’t, ever. Somehow she knows he never will, whatever they pretend.) A different dream. This one’s going to come true, as well. He pushes her into her first climax, doesn’t stop and forces a second, pulls her off the wall and hustles her into her bedroom and shoves her face down on the bed and this time adds hard fingertips to keep her screaming and then she can’t get enough breath to scream and comes a third time and now that he’s done exactly what he said he’d give her he allows himself release too and collapses over her body, holding her firmly into him. They’re not done with this scene yet.

He gives her a little time to collect herself, then turns her over to her back and looms up over her, still dressed, and she shivers at the look in his eye.

“You don’t ever do that again, kitten.   When you feel like that you come to me. You don’t go running into the dark without me.”

The statement had started as part of the game, but it’s not ending there, whatever she might believe right now. He’d been so scared of what might happen to her, gun or no. Running, sure, whatever; but not in the dark straight for the monsters lurking under the highway and down by the seaport. Not down there alone without him. Esposito had said that she’d been _better_. So what the _fuck_ had she been like before he showed up? Suddenly, and far too belatedly, he wonders why she’d ended up in that club at all – and what else she might have been thinking that night. He pulls her up by the shoulders and shakes her. “Not ever, you hear? You come to me and I’ll take care of it. Of you.”

It’s easy to agree, easy to let him take control and take charge, to tell her where to go and who to be. It’s been easier every time, and it’s fine, as long as it’s a dream, as long as he never, ever tells.

“Now, you need to apologise for being so” – there’s an infinitesimal hitch – “disobedient. Kneel, kitten.”

She thinks that the word he’d first thought of might have been _stupid_ , but he hadn’t said that, and anyway she’d thought that herself when she’d realised where she’d ended up. She stands up, as wobbly as Bambi on the ice, and sinks down on to her knees as he’d instructed, looking up at him sitting on the edge of her bed.

“I’m sorry.” He gazes down. More is clearly expected of her. “I won’t… I’ll come to you.” He nods sharply, decisively.

“Yes. You will.” Silence stretches out. She doesn’t move, waiting. He shifts closer and reaches for her, tucks her head against the hard muscle of his thigh, strokes her hair. “I’ll need to think about what you deserve. You’ll need to wait, and wonder. That’s part of it.” She makes a small, soft, entirely inadvertent noise of frustration. He pets her some more, not quite suggestive, not quite innocent: just enough to remind her that she’s his kitten and he’s her owner.

“We’ll start with this.” He taps the necklace. “I’m going to leave it here. Tomorrow evening, I’ll be here at nine. You’re going to give me a key.”   She startles, but he’s pushing now and he thinks that he’s caught her. He has a plan, and the covering darkness is part of it. “When I get here you’re going to be kneeling just as you are now, right here, only wearing that collar.” She gasps, and her face and eyes are flaring with heated colour and lust. “You won’t know the rest till I choose to tell you.” His smile is lazily wolfish. “Or not.   Now, come here.” And he pulls her up into his lap and cuddles her close and somehow, some way, his arms and body are between her and the outside world again.

It’s not until hours later, long after he’s left with her spare key in his hand, when they’re standing over a very messy crime scene, that she realises that neither of them had been masked and she had neither noticed nor, then, cared.


	13. Dressed to kill

Nemesis is delayed by that body. It’s just as well. Beckett has retreated right back behind a blank concrete wall, hiding in the case and the bullpen. According to the boys, who had it from the desk sergeant, she’s barely going home: when she’s not at her desk she’s in the gym, when she does leave it’s close to midnight and she’s in again before eight. The one, small, consolation is that she isn’t out running in the dark and searching for exhaustion where the monsters roam. Something gained, Castle supposes, and leaves her to work the case however she has to, never stopping – never trying to stop – her putting in the hours, never suggesting she might need him. Time enough, when the case is done.

Three days of Beckett and her team intensively searching having passed without a lead, they finally catch a break. Not that it makes her happier. Grieving daughter, mother dead, no answer yet. It’s all too familiar, and the only thing keeping her from nightfall and the lights gleaming on the water is that she hasn’t given up hope of succeeding with this one, where she’s failed with her own. So she keeps on working. It helps her forget that the last time hadn’t been anonymous: another creeping step into the dark recesses of her mind; another step to accepting what she wants.

But now they finally have a break, and a path to follow. It’s still a path to follow when she puts on the dress he’s bought for her – but no games here, this is work – and when they step into the town car. It’s still a path to follow when they finish the evening with a suspect and a strong lead – and when that brings success: the end of the road for the case. Nightfall averted.

Nightfall might have been averted, but the fundraiser had been _very_ extensively covered by the society magazines, gossip pages and paparazzi. Which might have been okay, except that Richard Castle clearly was, is, and evermore shall be a prime target for the flashguns. Which might _also_ have been okay, except that Beckett was on his arm. It appears that this is quite sufficient for several very unfortunate pictures – that meaning pictures at all: there was nothing revealing nor more embarrassing than being there in the first place, and they’re all pretty flattering if you like that sort of thing, though Ryan and Espo cutting them all out and handing her them for – quote – her scrapbook – unquote – had not improved her mood. As if that weren’t bad enough, there had been several very unfortunate comments below the pictures.

 _Rick Castle and his stunning muse_ , one had captioned the picture. Stunning is nice. She likes compliments as well as the next woman, though not necessarily in the press. It had been the rest of the article. _Sexy Rick Castle seems to have found an arresting new muse_ (ow! Dreadful pun alert, Beckett winces, ow!) _to amuse himself with. Watch this space. Looks like Rick’s on the hunt. We’ll be watching out to see how this develops._

The next had been rather less pleasant.

_Rick Castle’s latest one-night stand. Rumour has it it’s the cop he’s supposedly following for inspiration. Well, if Rick’s reputation’s any guide NYPD Barbie will be ditched next week._

Beckett does not like publicity. She does not like notoriety. And she _especially_ does not like to be the subject of the gossip pages. It’s never happened to her before now and she is going to ensure it never does again. Gossip rag hacks are the scum of the press and once they get their hooks into someone that person never has any peace ever again. She can’t afford to be a tabloid target: can’t afford them to be messing up her job – and cannot ever afford them to find out about that other side to her.

She’ll never be able to go back to that club ever again, now. Not now that she’s been splashed on page six – even in an entirely professional capacity – with Rick- _why-did-he-have-to-be-gossip-worthy-_ Castle. It’s too risky. It’s all far too risky, now. She’ll have enough issues with the natural newsworthiness of messy murders and Castle following them around – she supposes, rather more than slightly bitterly, that they’ve been lucky to avoid the press so far, since it’s clear that Castle’s magnetic attraction for the gossip hacks has not decreased – without risking someone finding out about her. Her life’s on the edge of disaster and she’s teetering, ready to fall.

But. But she doesn’t have to go to that club. But she’s already stepped over the bright line of keeping it out of her home. So what matter if it’s at her apartment now? At least it’s private. She can keep this private, because she doesn’t want to stop. She should stop. She should have stopped a week ago, or a month ago, or never started at all. She should stop, but she won’t stop. She’s no longer sure that she can stop. After all, she hasn’t managed it yet, and no matter how she’s tried the instant he’s started the game she’s been there on the field.

She has a very nastily pervasive feeling that this is becoming more than just the sexual equivalent of being taken to play with a stress ball.

* * *

The next day she has to return the necklace she had been lent, but as she leaves, delivery done, Castle whispers darkly in her ear: _tonight, kitten. Seven precisely. You still need to understand the consequences of your actions._ Seven, not nine. She wonders at the difference, but the tone slithers over her and curls insinuatingly between her legs, and she forgets to wonder.

For all these seven days, the collar has lain on her nightstand, delicate and beautiful and sparkling with darkly erotic promises. For all these seven days, she’s been working all the hours she can manage without collapsing, to avoid looking at it. And for all these seven days, she’s been trying very hard not to remember that he’d played her scene as roughly and erotically as she could ever have dreamt and desired – and that this time there had been no mask, no anonymity, no pretence she didn’t know to whom, and to what, she was giving in.

But he hadn’t encroached. He’d let the case come first, and it was only when that was over that he’d growled low in her ear and brought everything back in a rush of heat low in her body. Every time she gives in, it’s easier. Every time, it’s just as good: whether it’s the words or the petting or the soft dominance or the hard forcefulness.

She can’t stop, and she won’t stop.

And so at seven precisely, when her spare key turns in the door, she’s exactly as he had ordered: kneeling by her own bed, naked and collared by her own hand.

* * *

Castle is moderately unimpressed by the difficulties of finding any sort of a lead, but as soon as the prospect of the fundraiser – and taking Beckett to the fundraiser – sails into view he becomes much cheerier. It coincides with his inspiration returning, hard upon a nice new case (even if it hadn’t had any leads for three days) and his extremely satisfying encounter with Beckett. He is not referring to the sexual aspects. Well. Not much. Though that had been good too.

No, mostly he’s extremely satisfied by the step she’d taken. No mask, no club. And while he’ll happily introduce her to his bedroom, her apartment will do just fine too. Especially as she gave him a key, and it’s not populated by a variety of curious red-heads. In fact, it’s not populated by anyone else at all, which is extremely helpful. An extremely unhelpful image of his kitten kneeling naked by the bed flits through his mind and has to be swiftly extinguished.

It reminds him, however, that he is still due to teach her that if she chooses to go looking for trouble without him, there will be consequences. Thoroughly enjoyable consequences, but consequences that _he_ sets. If this massively ill-timed murder hadn’t intervened, she’d have been finding out the consequences the next evening. He’d had plans. He still has plans, but the delay had slightly altered them.

The need to find Beckett-as-Beckett a suitable dress for the fundraiser has altered his plans a lot further. He’s found her a very suitable dress, and since it’s an active investigation it’s entirely inappropriate for him to supply anything further – or suggest in any way at all that she should treat it as one of their… interludes. So he hadn’t. However, instead of his previous plans, which had involved a seemingly romantic walk in the late – and twilight-to-dark – evening, he’s now altered them to involve dinner at a thoroughly excellent and discreet restaurant, for which he intends to dress her in a manner of his choosing, from the skin out. He hadn’t bought those essentials when he bought the extremely recognisable dress for the fundraiser, in case anyone should connect them. Kitten-Kat is his, and his alone. No-one else gets to know she’s there. So he’d bought them from different shops at different times.

Once they’d caught the bad guy: jointly run him down and let the boys take him away; once she’d come by to return his mother’s necklace, it had been easy to growl darkly in her ear. It had been a lot harder not simply to stop her leaving; not to let her go. He’s not sure he’ll ever be able to let her go, once she stays a full night with him.

So tonight he has with him a neat backpack which doesn’t reveal anything of its contents, and a plan for the evening and, he hopes, the rest of the night, based around the story he’d told her.

He has entirely forgotten that he had intended to keep her, in her kitten-Kat alter-ego, completely secret, that he had _known_ she needed anonymity, and that she’s needed it to be a dream, all along. He wants to take her out, just the way he’d described: wants there to be a _them_ that doesn’t stay behind a locked door. He thinks that because they weren’t masked, that problem has been overcome.

She’s placed herself exactly as he’d commanded, and he can’t resist prowling over to her and petting her, running his hand over her soft dark hair and down her back to the dimple at its base and then over her small, neat rear. She presses back into him and desire is openly gleaming in her eyes when she looks up.

“I brought you a present, kitten.” He waits. He doesn’t think that she’s a woman who wants, or gets, many presents; and sure enough there’s a very slight tension in her shoulders. “It’s a present that I’ll enjoy just as much as you.” And relaxation again. What is up with her, that she’s still so closed about everything?

He pulls her up to stand with him. “Stand straight, kitten.” Not that she ever stands any other way. Even when her mood screams slumped, she’s been iron-backed and tall. The only times she’s ever been softer she’s been under his spell and touch. He likes that. He likes this: his kitten with him, smaller and slim against his size, right where she should be and exactly how she should be, when they’re alone. He pets her a little more, till she’s purring contentedly and plastered against him, and then he thinks that this is a good time to begin, now that she’s relaxed.

“Sit down.” He produces from his backpack a neatly folded pile of white silk, which gives nothing away when she looks at it. “I said I’d decide how I wanted to dress you.” He smiles, slow and sleepy and seductive, and she curves a little and purrs again. “No talking till I’m done dressing you.”

He starts with the basque: clasps it round her ribs and does up all the tiny hooks and eyes until she’s enclosed. He’d chosen it to be tasteful, not some peep show – that’s not what this is about – or strip club costume. Sure, it’s hugely arousing, but it’s not sluttish. It’s smooth over her lithe frame, accentuating every covered curve. He can’t resist stroking as he goes, winding her higher, tightening her nipples and dilating her pupils till her eyes are huge and black.

“Control, kitten. You need to control yourself.” He rolls on a dark silk stocking: wet, dirty kisses preceding the fabric, hard, searching fingers succeeding it, and clips it on to the garter straps; trails idly across her and growls darkly in her ear when she tries to press into him. “Not yet. You’ll find out the rest in a little while.” The second stocking arrives in the same manner, but when it’s secure Castle stands her up again.

Being dressed like a doll is not something Beckett has experienced since she was a child. It’s entirely strange, and entirely erotic. Knowing that at some point he is likely to take it all off again – or possibly, she thinks, tell _her_ to take it off – is also intensely arousing. When his fingers dance over her she has the same reaction she’s had every time: heated, damp and shortly desperate. She hasn’t forgotten one single scorching syllable of that particular conversation; and, as he’d promised, anticipation is leaving her soaked. A walk she can probably deal with, if it’s dark. If no-one could see.

“Good enough to eat,” he rasps. “Remember, pet, control.” He pushes her back on the bed, spread out over the coverlet, and proceeds to prove his theory. It takes all she has to stay in control, writhing under his hands holding her firmly in place, moaning and then begging under his wicked, searching mouth and tongue. Then he stops.

“Perfect,” he says crisply. “That should remind you whose you are and who’s in control of you.” He delves into the pack again and produces a deep cherry-red dress, full skirted, small puff sleeves over a sweetheart neckline. “Black heels, kitten. I know you have them.” She sways across to her closet, seductive in her turn, and slips them on, her endless legs stark black against the white silk basque, undulates back again. He drops the dress neatly over her head, pulls the sleeves over her arms and fastens the loop and concealed zip at the back.

“Look at yourself, kitten. All dressed up – except for one thing.” He produces the bracelets from his pocket and clips them on her wrists. “Do you like what you see?” he murmurs. “I do. All dressed up just the way I please.” He bends the short distance and kisses her hard, wholly possessive and in charge. Then he flicks a glance at his watch and smiles with satisfaction. “We’re going out to dinner, kitten. Just like the story I told you. The car should be downstairs.”

“No.” She’s abruptly drained white, all the colour gone from her face and lips, and a look of absolute horror in her eyes.

“What?” He had turned to the door, and can’t see her face. He’s turning back, recognising the look as that deathly emptiness which he’d hoped never to see again, as she continues.

“No. I won’t.” Her voice is high and thin and frantic. “I can’t. I _won’t_.” She’s too panicked to remember her safe word. She will not do this. She can’t do this. She won’t be seen with him in a smart restaurant where the paparazzi play. It’s her worst nightmare come true.

“Kitten…”

“No!” and then to his absolute astonishment, “ _Siamese._ ” He stares at her, in the pretty dress and heels, perfectly dressed for an evening out. It’s clear she isn’t joking, pretending or playing. It’s all gone horribly wrong, and he has no idea why. But it’s her safe word, so they won’t be going anywhere. He opens his mouth on reassurance but is forestalled.

“I can’t. No. I’m not going out. You don’t understand. I won’t be seen with you.” There’s a frightening tinge of terror to her tone.

“So you won’t come out with me?” Castle says, and then quietly, “You don’t want to be with me?”

“ _No!_ ” she cries, and sharp ice stabs through his chest. “I won’t do this.” His gaze snaps back to her white face.

“Won’t do what?”

“I won’t risk anyone finding out. I won’t have this secret hanging over me, waiting for someone to find out. You want to make it public. I have to work. I can’t risk exposure. _This is not who I am_.”

“You’re ashamed of it. Of this.” He stops, and makes the next leap of logic. “You’re ashamed of being with me.” He’s never been so hurt in all his life. He could have easily coped with the safe word, but not being told that she’s _ashamed_ of being with him at all. “You don’t want to be like this with me. Fine. You never had to do this anyway. You only wanted to keep it as your dirty little secret and never have to admit that you wanted it just as badly.” All he’s heard is that she’s _ashamed_ to be with him. He’s completely missed the nuance of _public_ , too hurt and angry to think. He’s just been written off as no more than a socially unacceptable toy.

There’s a nasty, gaping silence. She says nothing, breathing quickly, shallowly.

He takes the two keys – to the door and to the little padlocks on the bracelets and necklace – from his pocket, and drops them on the table. They ring in the silence. “I guess we’re done with this. If you can’t bear to be with me, there’s no point. If you’re that ashamed of me, it’s over. Don’t bother returning anything. I wouldn’t want it back.”

He’s gone a moment later: the last thing he sees the keys untouched on the table, her white face over the pretty cherry-red dress, the gleaming rhinestones at neck and wrists. Picture perfect, till the glass cracked. He can hear her harsh, scratching breaths, precursor to sobs, before he’s even closed the door, but he doesn’t go back. He was just some dirty little secret. If she feels like that then he’s not interested.

But the agony in his chest gives him the lie. He goes home and buries the memory of the failure of this night in single malt, blocking out the taunting flicker of his screensaver and the sharp memory of how she looked.

* * *

The open rhinestone bracelets and necklace are lying accusingly on the table with their keys, the dress puddled like blood on the floor: still there when Beckett wakes in the morning, still there when she gets home that night. She can’t bear to touch any of them again. Finally she forces herself to pack everything up in the abandoned backpack where she needn’t see them, and then throws that into the closet.

The precinct is full of paperwork and no homicides, again. At least it means that she doesn’t have any company. She spends lunchtime in the gym, where neither sparring nor solo work with the punchbag improves her mood at all, and leaves at shift end, to change and run for miles through the park, while it’s still light. She’s home before it’s dark, unconsoled, and not finding the exhaustion she’d sought in hard exercise. She doesn’t bathe, she showers, and doesn’t linger over her moisturiser. She finds something that might once have been polenta in the cupboard, mixes in some frozen vegetables and eats it without enthusiasm.

And then she goes to bed in her smooth, cool sheets and comforter and cries herself quietly to ragged, headachy sleep.

While she’s in the precinct it’s easier – not _easy_ – to be her usual controlled, unemotional self. She’s not snappish, she’s not angry, she’s not upset by anything. With each day that passes without a new case, she adds another coat of plaster to the wall she’s re-established around her feelings, and crams her unwanted, unfulfillable desires into the oubliette where she puts everything she doesn’t want to think about.

But if she won’t think about what she feels and wants in that direction, it leaves a treacherously large space for her to think about something else. She’d originally been hiding from the lack of progress on her mother’s murder: she’d put that down on Montgomery’s orders four years ago, and on this one anniversary six months ago had barely kept to that: the club the last resort before she dived in. To the case, or the river. (She’s looked, though. She’s looked again, but not for long enough to fall. That night, she was ready to fall.) But with no cases, and no other form of relief in prospect (because she will never dare to seek it out again) that failure is scraping at her skin: a hair shirt of guilt that she’d ever stopped searching.

It takes her two more empty, unexciting days, in which she blisters first her knuckles on the bag and then her feet from running, before she lets herself into Archives, late one evening.

She might as well fall like this. It’s better than the alternative.


	14. To die, to sleep

Castle, much to his bleak surprise, has not lost inspiration, though his tale has twisted into a more painful and darker hue. He keeps writing. It helps him to forget, though far too often his errant mind flashes on to what she might be doing. It’s not his problem any more, if she’s out in the dark where the monsters lurk.

But he can’t bring himself – no matter how he tries – to go looking for a replacement in the one place he knows he might find it. It’s ridiculous still to care about what she said, and still more so to be skulking at home rather than getting on with his life. They hadn’t even had a proper relationship, so there shouldn’t have been anything to break.

He stays clear of the precinct, though it doesn’t stop him sharing a beer or three with Ryan and Esposito one evening. He points out that paperwork is (one) not inspiring (two) not his forte and (three) not his problem, which last is said with a happily smug smile, entirely faked, that gets him twin punches in the shoulders. He doesn’t ask about Beckett in particular, but about the precinct in general. It doesn’t stop them telling him about her. There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong at all. Just the same as usual, in fact better, because apparently she’s not spending her life at her desk or in the gym. Castle files that under _clearly she’s not bothered_ and preserves a perfectly unworried face. Deep inside he aches a little more.

He’s still not short of bleak ideas when the next body drops, just at the end of a casual game of Texas Hold-‘em at his loft with the boys. He hasn’t missed that Beckett didn’t take up the generic invitation that he’d gone in to issue, and tells himself that he’s glad of that. He hadn’t even had to speak to her: she’d been head down in papers and hadn’t looked up.

He likes the cases and he likes the boys and he’d _like_ a chat with Montgomery about his manipulative man-management tendencies, so he goes along to the scene with them. He does not like the body drowned in black, viscous motor oil, and he’s not very keen on the sleazy SRO it’s been found in.

He especially does not like the look of Beckett. How did Esposito – or Ryan, for that matter – get to be a cop if that’s the level of their observation? _Better_? Only in the sense that a corpse is _better_ the day it died than it is when it’s rotted for a week.   _It’s not your problem, Rick. She doesn’t want to be with you, and you don’t play where you’re not wanted._ But it’s clear she’s strung tight again, and from – no. _No_. This is not his problem any more.

 _As long as she’s not down in the dark_ , a voice whispers in his head. And, _As long as she doesn’t find someone else. Someone she’s not ashamed of. You left the collar and cuffs. She might use them with someone else._ The thought produces a viciously clawing rake of anger, jealousy and hurt.

 _Not my problem,_ he tells himself. Not his problem. So he ignores her stress and tight-wired tension, and doesn’t ask about her at all, only about the case. He also doesn’t ask how she’s getting home, because that’s obvious. She’ll get a cab, or the subway, just like they all will.

It’s not till he looks back from his own cab before it pulls away that he realises that she’s waved away the one he thought she was getting into, and by that time it’s too late to change his mind. Not that he would have. She’s a grown woman and she carries a gun. ( _But she shouldn’t mess with the monsters._ ) She can protect herself.

She’ll have to. She won’t trust him to; she doesn’t want him to. By the time he’s recovered breath from that thought, he’s home.

* * *

Beckett had meant to go home. She really had. But the shock of Castle being there, just the same as on any other case, his distinctive cologne wafting around her, has left her disconcerted and discomposed. She won’t sleep, or even relax, if she goes home: the demon that’s hiding in her closet nagging at the back of her brain.

It hasn’t yet occurred to her that she could attempt to fix this mess by explaining. She’s not good at explaining, and she’s not good at admitting to what she wants. She also doesn’t want to try, because what if she fails? She’s not good with failure, either. Especially not when she’d be admitting in terms what she really likes, and she’s still not happy at all that she likes it. How can she want that, when it goes against everything she is all the rest of the time?

She looks down Rutgers to the edge of the East River and Manhattan Bridge beyond, the lights flickering enticingly on the dark water, and turns away from temptation. From that temptation. She doesn’t need that, and she’s far past strong enough to resist it. She doesn’t even try to resist the other temptation. She walks the mile or so to the precinct, gun and shield obviously in view of anyone who might think of causing trouble; doesn’t go anywhere near the fourth floor, the bullpen, or her desk; slides unobtrusively into a quiet, shielded corner of the Archives and gives herself up to this re-acquired addiction. Maybe not re-acquired. Maybe she’s simply stopped trying to resist it. In any case, it masks the toxic desperation for that other addiction.

She can’t afford to be exposed and so she can’t carry on. She can’t submit to anything which carries that risk. It’s a line she can’t cross. Two people out in public can only keep it secret from the gossip hacks if one of them is dead, and if she were found out, she might as well be, because her life will be destroyed. She has to beat that addiction.

Hunting her mother’s murderer, on the other hand, is a socially acceptable addiction.

So that’s what she does. She works the live case as hard as she possibly can, not giving it one single drop less than she would have done a fortnight ago, not that any of it seems to get them anywhere any faster. And when she’s done with that, at the end of the day, she turns to the other case, pretending she’s leaving – sometimes even doing so, going to a coffee bar and eating something, or going home for a while before returning, ghosting through the precinct, unmarked by anyone. She’s normally so noticeable, so very obviously _there_ , that when she wishes to pull into herself and be unobtrusive and invisible it’s surprising how well it works.

It’s just unfortunate that Castle follows the live case wherever it goes, and won’t leave it alone for an instant.

It’s more unfortunate still when Montgomery and Castle come bouncing out of Montgomery’s office full of the joys of poker. Because Montgomery then goes on to invite Beckett to Castle’s game tonight – to Castle’s clear horror – and refuses to take any form of _no_ for an answer.

* * *

Castle had gone to the precinct to follow the case, which is interesting, not least when it turns out that there’s a chance to watch how a second-rate hack goes about writing true crime. Badly, he expects. He hasn’t seen anything to indicate that she has any sense of writing style, and the snippets he had seen (and a quick flick through a previous book) haven’t changed that.

Mildly amused contempt abruptly changes to furious anger when he realises that the hack is angling to follow Beckett around. No way. He’s got that gig and he isn’t giving that up. Nor is he going to fall into bed with this woman. Ugh. (And besides which, she doesn’t have the vibe. There’s no way she’d be compatible.) Still, he hides it and takes her card with a semblance of goodwill.

The rest of the day up till then has been equally displeasing. Sharing a road trip with Beckett produces no talking at all and no explanations: he’s certainly not inclined to start and she is as close-mouthed as a shut bear trap. He’s unworthily satisfied at her locked down tension, though. Soon enough, she’ll need release, and if she wants it she’s going to have to explain in some detail why she didn’t trust him enough to be seen in public with him. Why she was _ashamed_.

He used, he thinks angrily, to be perfectly easy-going as long as his writing was going well, outside the bedroom. He doesn’t like this frustration and annoyance at all. It’s not who he is, but he can’t shake it off. Another reason to obtain some explanations. That’ll cure it.

The best part – the only good part – of the next day is dragging the hack back into Interrogation and grilling her. Shame it has no effect at all, and worse, she has an alibi. But while Beckett is preserving what can best be described as stone-faced control over her disappointment, not notably improved by their joint wonderings about why the victim’s charity donations had been ignored in a tell-all exculpation, Castle casts a glance at Montgomery’s cheerful face and decides to improve his surroundings by going to chat with him about tonight’s poker game.

“Castle. What brings you to my humble office?”

Castle grins. He likes Roy, even if he is sure that Roy has an ulterior motive for allowing his, Castle’s, presence. However, now isn’t the time for that conversation – apart from anything else, it’ll need a lot of smoothing beer or whiskey; and of course Roy is coming to the loft for the weekly game. No point spoiling that.

“Came to make sure you know to go to the ATM before tonight starts,” he smirks.

“This time I’m going to see you beat.”

“Yeah, right. You haven’t beaten me once since you started showing up.” Montgomery grins in return, more than a touch ruefully.

“Haven’t seen anyone else do it either. If I didn’t like you, I’d swear you’d rigged that room with cameras so you could watch every hand.”

“Strange,” Castle muses. “I’d have thought that you’d be really brilliant at reading opponents. Isn’t that what you do in Interrogation?”

“I suppose so,” Montgomery says, clearly caught by the idea, “but although I’m not bad at that, I always preferred hard evidence before I went in, rather than trying to pick up the cues on a bad hand.” He stands up and snags his jacket. “Time to go?”

He follows Castle out of his office, a particularly mischievous smile suddenly appearing on his face. He’s just had a really, really good idea. Beckett’s stressed. Castle being around may not have improved her stress level much, but she certainly hasn’t gotten any worse, and the solve rate has got very much better. He congratulates himself on spotting an opportunity to smooth the fit of the team a couple of months ago, and decides to improve the shining hour a little further. As Castle retrieves his jacket from Beckett’s desk, Montgomery grins widely.

“Beckett, we’re off to play a few hands of poker at Castle’s. Seems he never loses.” She wouldn’t know. She’d made damn sure she hadn’t gone with the boys last time. Not that she’d been invited specifically, so it had been easy not to go at all. They’d had a good time, apparently, till the motor oil body had dropped.

“Okay. ‘Night, Captain. Castle,” she says, already back at the case and longing for them to leave her to it. Or just to leave.

“He thought someone who’s done a lot of interrogations would be – what was it, Castle? Oh – really brilliant at reading opponents. So I thought of you.” He smirks very widely at the look of horror on Beckett’s face. He wouldn’t have been half as smug if he could have seen the matching look on Castle’s face. “Get your coat, Beckett. I’m sure Castle can find you a seat at the table.”

“But…but… I’m busy, sir.” Castle wishes she hadn’t added the term of respect. He doesn’t need that memory. Not that her talking to her Captain should trigger it. He’s far too sensitive to her words. She’d been sensitive to his words… _No_. It’s over.

“Shift ended two hours ago, Beckett. You need a break.”

Castle is biting his tongue not to yell _No, she can’t come_. Doing that would raise so many questions that neither of them have any desire to answer. He doesn’t want her in the loft. Correction. He doesn’t want her in the loft if she isn’t going to be in his bedroom. _No_. He doesn’t want her. Period.

“I’m _fine_ , sir,” she says exasperatedly. And then she looks up and catches the horrified expression of resistance on Castle’s face and just for an instant her eyes go dull and then they shut down. “I don’t want to come.”

“Scared, Beckett?” Montgomery teases.

“No,” she flashes back. “I don’t want to take all your money. It’s a career-limiting move to take cash from my boss, his boss, and the judge who signs all my warrants.”

“So you reckon you’d win?”

“Sure I would. I’ve outplayed you for years.”

“True. So it’s time you had a real challenge.” His tone changes to rather more determined jollying along, supported on a definite plinth of Captainly command. “Get your coat, Beckett. You’re leaving the precinct for tonight, and you’re going to come with us. Castle here needs taking down a peg or six, and you’re my best chance of seeing it.”

Beckett hears _so you don’t come back here_ in her Captain’s voice and resigns herself to the miserable inevitability of the evening ahead. The only, tiny consolation is that Castle looks at least as appalled at the prospect as she feels. And that’s actually no consolation at all.

* * *

She could win this hand. She really, really could. But if she does, Castle will demand a rematch, because that’s what’s happened over the last hand, which she also won – it’s currently evens and he clearly wants an outright victory – and she’s had enough of being here. The poker gang are all bright, breezy and blithering about the case, she thinks with viciousness, and she doesn’t want to hear about the body in the oil any more. She’s wasted enough time thanks to Montgomery’s _wonderful_ idea. It’s not as if Castle’s any happier than she is that she ended up here.

She folds, puts up with Castle’s ridiculously overacted triumphalism, the other men’s sympathy – and then Castle’s latest way-out, wacky idea, which won’t vacate her already over-irritated mind.

It’s still buzzing round her brain when she gets home. When it’s still there after she’s gone through her bedtime routine, she stops trying to ignore it and starts trying to pull it apart; or at least think of ways it can be disproved in the morning. When she looks at the clock she’s horrified to find that it’s two a.m. and she should have been asleep some time ago. A long time ago. However, she does have a list of ways to scotch this insane theory before it even begins.

She falls into heavy sleep with a goal and a plan in mind. It blots out the memory of the appallingly uncomfortable evening.

* * *

Castle had been thoroughly horrified by Montgomery’s calm assumption that he’d be happy to add Beckett to the evening, but he hadn’t come up with a way to prevent it. He also hasn’t come up with a way to make Beckett explain herself that doesn’t involve a private conversation in a locked room. _If she had ever wanted to make it work she’d have explained_ , he thinks bitterly, and forgets that Beckett has never yet talked about anything.

Well, if he’s been backed into a corner, so has Beckett. She’d hardly looked happy at the prospect either. In fact, she’d looked very hurt and then she’d shut down. She’s a damn good poker player, though. He’d only just won.

He looks at the cards. Oh. He hadn’t won. She’d thrown the game. She’d been so desperate to leave she’d thrown the game. Well, the hell with that. She can damn well explain that one. And the rest. And then he is going to have a conversation with Montgomery about the basis for his presence in the precinct, which does _not_ involve being part of a Beckett support network. That’s for her team. He’s only there for research.

* * *

When he gets in the next morning and heads straight for the coffee machine he’d provided, he finds Beckett, Ryan and Esposito arguing bitterly over – oh. Ohhhh. Over _his_ theory. That’s unexpected.

“Susan Mailer? Alive?” Ryan sounds very much as if he already believes in this idea, which is no doubt why Esposito is looking mildly cynical and Beckett looks as if she’d bitten a lemon. Clearly his theory is as unwelcome as being seen in public with him.   Castle weighs in in Ryan’s support, and of course support of his own idea.

“Her body was never found,” he points out to all three of them. Beckett jumps. The boys grin happily, pleased to see him.

“Yeah. Because she was vaporized in the explosion.” Not a lot of tolerance of differing opinions there, Beckett. Alpha Beckett on full display, in fact. She’s in charge, and oh boy does she want him to know it. Well, too bad. He’ll fight his corner.

“Well, maybe she was thrown clear.”

“Well, then, she would've been badly burned and would've needed care,” Espo points out, in tones of sweet reason and obvious disbelief.

“And no one matching her description ever checked into area hospitals,” Ryan adds, now wavering in his support.

“Mere details, my good man,” Castle says smoothly, smirking. He doesn’t actually really care if the theory is proved or not, as long as he’s as useful as the boys (if in a very different way) in solving the case. He likes solving the cases.

“Um, around here, we call them "facts",” Beckett snaps. She looks entirely unconvinced. But Castle has a new theory, and a plan, and a chance to make Beckett explain where neither of them can get stupid about it.

“Well then, let's go get us some "facts",” he says. Beckett still doesn’t seem in any way enthused or convinced, but she’s locked down hard, just the way she has been since she told him she wouldn’t be seen with him. Just the way she was in the beginning, without the hard anger – hang on a moment. Just the way she was after she’d found out he knew who she was. She’d had that same white, horrified look then as she’d had when he told her they were about to go out to dinner, and then she’d fled. She’d said _no_ then too.

Light begins, very slowly, to dawn as he follows Beckett to her cruiser, gets in, and doesn’t, now, care that Beckett has switched on the radio in a very _I’m-not-going-to-talk_ way. He’s scrapped all idea of calling her on throwing the hand. He has some serious thinking to do, and a nice peaceful road trip to Westchester is just the perfect time to do it. He shuts his eyes and lets his brain function.


	15. Die another day

Westchester arrives before Castle’s come to any conclusions, but at least he’s arranged his evidence.

He tells her he knows who she is – she panics. He tries to take her out to dinner to mimic the situation where she’d thoroughly enjoyed an equivalent, imaginary scene – she panics. She’s seen out with him as part of the investigation – she doesn’t panic. Up till the final time, they’d both been masked, been, or pretended to be, anonymous, been away from each other’s stamping ground – and she’d not panicked.

Thinking is interrupted by arrival at their witnesses’ house. The second interview yields rather more information, and postmarks and envelopes lead them to the long drive from Westchester to Lititz, PA. The radio stays on, and Castle’s eyes stay shut and his mind stays open.

She doesn’t panic – didn’t panic – when it was anonymous and private. She didn’t panic about being seen with him when it was nothing to do with her – their – predilections. She did panic every time it seemed like it was – or could be – known about. She’d even said it, and he hadn’t heard it. _I can’t risk exposure. This is not who I am_.

 _But it is who she is_ , he thinks: part angry, part confused. _Why’s she denying it?_ At which point something floats back into his mind. Bedroom submissive. Oh, _fuck_. _Bedroom_ submissive. Well, behind a closed door, anyway. A distinction without a practical difference.

It’s not just the collar: he is sure that’s part of it, though nothing like the whole. He’ll work that out later. It’s the _privacy_. Privacy from everything, and everyone. Anonymity, so she didn’t know who it was – and was not herself identifiable. And then sticking with the masks, even after she knew, so that she could pretend it still was. She’d been appalled because he _recognised_ her: he knew who she was and what she liked…. And that’s why she’d responded to the scenario of a dream, so that she could tell herself it wasn’t real: that no-one could or would know.

Absolute denial that it was real, or that it was her, so that no-one (including herself?) would ever know. She’s fought it every minute until it’s – oh. Until it’s become a necessity and he’s pushed her to it and then she’s pretended it isn’t real and it isn’t her.

Oh _fuck_. He knew he’d never tell. She didn’t. Doesn’t. And based on the fundraiser, she is perfectly certain that the paparazzi follow him around everywhere he goes. Which is actually not true. He’s rather good at avoiding them, and he hasn’t really done anything interesting or gossip-worthy for several months, so they’ve moved on to someone more interesting (but less handsome and charming) instead. But he can’t deny that they like a piece of him if he’s about.

She’d been utterly terrified because he’d planned an evening which would put her out there in public.

The radio is playing – ugh. Mediocre musicals? Really, Beckett? _The Music of the Night_. How very appropriate. That’s a story that’s all about dreams, or nightmares. He’s been there, inside her mind. He wonders idly if Beckett can sing. He can. He didn’t really get a choice about that, growing up.

“Can you sing?” falls out his mouth.

“What?”

“Can you sing?”

“No.”

“Not even in the shower?”

“No.” She hasn’t taken her eyes off the road or her mirrors once, driving perfectly, apparently wholly absorbed in her control of the car. Not a single hint of personality is leaking out: nothing which might tell him anything about her.

“No karaoke bars? No stage performances? No musicals at school?”

“No.” Not unless she’s had too much wine and Lanie’s egging her on. She hasn’t done that in a long while, either.

“Oh.” He shuts his eyes again, and returns to thought, since it’s clear answers are in not short, but non-existent, supply. This is not a good moment to force a discussion – and why should he? He can wait, and he will wait, till it all gets too much for her again, and she comes looking for him. ( _But she might go looking for the monsters instead,_ whispers a nasty little voice. He doesn’t listen to that.)

Okay, so she doesn’t want any of it known outside the two of them, which he can understand, though why she should think he would kiss and tell, so to speak, he has no idea. But why then take that a leap further into wholesale denial; and how does that play into the way in which his pretty collar affects her? He knows that’s the switch that flips her from off to on.

He’s still considering both those points when the car slows up and he discovers that they’re pulling into Lititz, Pennsylvania, population 9,388. Not a lot, in other words. It’s probably full of nosy neighbours twitching their lace curtains to spy on everyone around them – perfect for finding this suspect in a hurry.

They nearly don’t, until Castle remembers that if someone’s been blown up and miraculously survived, it’s rather improbable that they wouldn’t have scars, or a limp. And just like that, the small-town gossip network kicks in and they have a name and address in seconds. Beckett is civilly grateful for his success and about as emotional as a brick as they go to arrest the woman.

No death-defying moments here. No emotional or adrenaline overload. Nothing to provide the shove she needs. Well, he’s not going to provide it either. She will come to him of her own volition, or not at all. ( _But what if she won’t? What was she doing or thinking when she came to the club the very first time? What were her other options?)_ He doesn’t hear the worrying little voice, but a sense of unease that isn’t attributable to the murderer and terrorist in the back (cuffed or not) pervades him all the long drive back to Manhattan. He’s already forgotten his insight: that she has never come to him without first his intervention and his telling her to, once she’d known who it had been.

Beckett doesn’t like the answer to the case. She doesn’t like it at all: it offends her sense of natural justice, though not her sense of the law. It’s the same unpleasant feeling as she’d had after the frozen body case. This time, however, it isn’t going to induce her to make stupid, revealing statements that disrupt her control and roil her emotions and leave her susceptible to… stress relief. That’s all. Stress relief. Nothing else at all, and certainly nothing of any meaning. She’ll just ignore the feeling, and since there’s been no stress worthy of the name in completing this case she can’t be stressed.

Which doesn’t explain why she turns down the demand for a rematch – though not the return of her money – refuses to be drawn into any conversation at all, and disappears before she can do anything as profoundly dumb as she’s thinking of, such as changing her mind. She doesn’t even understand why he’d bothered asking.   He’d not wanted to spend time with her at the previous game, he’d been silent – amazing! – all the way to and from Lititz, which hardly indicates pleasure in her company: more that he was suffering extreme boredom. But she’s not stressed by his behaviour.

It certainly doesn’t explain why she goes out running again that evening as fast as she can get home and change into shorts and sports tee, and not coincidentally ends up, after a couple of miles of hard effort, running down East 5th Street towards the precinct and the Archives. She’s not dealing with her stress by working, because she’s not stressed.

And she’s still not stressed when she works her mother’s case for two full hours, spends a further hour in the gym punching the living daylights out the speed bag, and then runs home. She’s merely exhausted, as she should be.

Which doesn’t explain why she’s still wholly miserable as she slides, showered and briefly moisturised, into bed, just as she has been for the whole of the previous fortnight, since he walked out. She used to enjoy her bath, and moisturiser afterwards. Now she doesn’t.

But she’s not stressed.

* * *

Castle, in default of a poker game with Beckett in which he’d intended the stakes to be answers to his very reasonable questions, collects Ryan and Esposito and drags them off to his favourite down at heel bar. Beer is obtained, bar snacks swiftly follow, and once the necessities of male social life are established everyone is apparently happy. Two of them actually are. The pool tables nearby are a convenient bonus. Conversation follows the fortunes of the Mets, (not doing so good, not that this is news) then turns to basketball, for which Esposito provides a shot-by-shot analysis of the Knicks’ last game, and then wanders to the question on Ryan’s mind.

“Hey, Castle, did your pet pathologist find anything yet?”

Castle hadn’t noticed that Clark Murray had failed to call him. He’s been very deliberately not thinking about anything to do with Beckett, and failing miserably at that. It really does not help that his character is based on her.

“No, not yet. But he’s pretty busy. I’ll give him a nudge now.” He takes out his phone and taps out a text, showing it to the boys to prove he’s done it.

“Where’s she been, last few days?” Ryan asks. “She’s not been in the bullpen any time after shift if there hasn’t been a case. Not normal.” Espo shrugs.

“Dunno. I’da thought it was a boyfriend” – Ryan makes a rudely disbelieving noise, and Castle doesn’t react at all – “that she’d found maybe just after Christmas, but she mighta been better since then but it don’t feel like it’s ‘cause of that. She ain’t got the vibe that there’s someone around for her. An’ the last coupla weeks it’s been different.” He pauses to consider. “Furtive,” he says with satisfaction at finding exactly the correct word. “Like she’s off doin’ something she oughtn’t.” There’s another, very brief pause as he and Ryan acquire identically _oh-fuck_ expressions.

“Like she’s down in Archives,” they say together. “Oh fuck.”

“If Montgomery catches her back on that case he’ll have her balls.” Neither man sniggers at the incongruity – and impossibility – of what they’ve just said. Everyone in the bullpen is perfectly well aware that female or not Beckett has bigger cojones than most.

Castle finally catches up with the conversation. “You think she’s back on her mom’s case?” he queries.

“Yep.” Esposito sounds absolutely sure of it. “Dunno why, though. ‘S been four years she’s kept out it. No reason I know she should go back now. If it had anythin’ to do with you” – he looks at Castle, who is currently preserving perfect placidity – “she’d have started the day you showed up to shadow her, not weeks an’ weeks later.”

“So what if she is?” Castle inquires, in a mildly interested tone that completely belies his roiling thoughts. Espo looks just a little irritated that Castle apparently hasn’t got the point.

“ _So_ , it means that she’s back to trying to kill herself lookin’ for somethin’ that she ain’t gonna find. Just like she did first time round.” He wriggles uncomfortably. “Montgomery sent her to the shrink, last time.” He wriggles more. “I ain’t supposed to know that. He told her to lay off. An’ she did. Din’t like it, but she did it. But ‘s like I said, an’ Ryan said, she never stops workin’ and she never gets upset. Cool as c’n be, all the time. Gotta blow out somewhere.”

“So you better hustle your pal along,” Ryan comments, “ ‘cause if she gets caught she’ll be in big trouble, and you’ll have no-one to shadow for a while.” Castle looks appropriately horrified for a while, and then turns the conversation back to other matters until the party breaks up.

So she is down in the dark with the monsters. All sorts of monsters, and risking her boss’s wrath to play with them.

And this is still _not his problem_. Except it is, because the timing is emphatically _not_ coincidental.

* * *

Another case arrives hard on the heels of the eco-terrorist. Beckett initially welcomes it, for the first five minutes, until she gets to the scene, finds Montgomery and Castle there, and then finds that it’s not a murder but a child kidnapping. Worse, the FBI team who actually have jurisdiction are led by her ex, and while their break-up had been mutual and civil, she could have done without those memories too. Even worse than that, Will takes an instant dislike to Castle, who promptly reciprocates in spades. And just to put the tin lid on the whole thing, Will is _also_ making it clear he’d like to give it another go.

Beckett is tearing her hair out by the end of the first hour, never mind the first day. The testosterone charged atmosphere of dislike between the two men is ridiculous. Castle ditched her, but he’s acting like he’s either jealous or possessive or both. Will broke up with her – or she with him – because whatever they had wasn’t enough, and there’s no chance now that it would be. He’d never be able to play the way she’d need – not necessarily want – him to, and anyway he’s too close to her own profession for her to be able to suggest it. She leaves that night with a headache and kills the pain with Advil. For the first time in days sleep comes more easily, as Advil and irritation overcome misery.

Matters do not improve between the two men, and matters do not improve on the case either. This is turning into a horrible re-run of the case she and Will had worked years ago, and that had not gone at all well.   Getting that guy had not made up for the sight of the small, broken body. Every route they try peters out. Every lead or suspect they think they have fails. Beckett’s headache never quite leaves her, and she’s exhausted. She puts it down to the hours she’s putting in and the stress the two big men are causing her, takes as many Advil as she can without overdosing and keeps searching for the child.

Castle has no theories, but works as hard as Esposito and Ryan, conscious of how he would feel had it ever been Alexis. He knows that his instantaneous dislike for Agent Sorenson is quite, quite petty and pathetic – why should he care if Sorenson wants Beckett back? – but he is bitterly jealous that they shared a relationship and even more annoyed that Sorenson is making it very clear, whenever Beckett isn’t around, that he’s going to win her back. Castle’s not so sure of that – and it’s not only wishful thinking. He may have surprised Sorenson shortly before the man was about to lean in on Beckett, but Beckett hadn’t exactly looked warmly welcoming and she’s been buried in the case ever since. He’s entirely unconvinced that she’s gone home at any time since the case began.

Inevitably, there’s a blow-up. Sorenson wants an ESU sweep. Beckett says it’s pointless and then spits out that she’s not losing this one.

“It's not him, Will! We're at square freakin' one, and we've got nothing. You can send ESU wherever you want, but I'm not losing this one.” She storms off, furious with them, herself, and the case.

“What did she mean, "not losing this one"?” He had thought she’d said they had solved the last one.

“The case we worked.” Sorenson sounds a touch embarrassed.

“I thought you got the guy.”

“We did, but... the kid was already dead.”

Ah. That could explain an awful lot. And it could explain an awful lot more unconnected to the case, after they’ve solved it. (They have to solve it. He couldn’t bear it if they didn’t.) She’s already starting to hit the buffers. When it’s over, she’ll fall off the adrenaline cliff and she will need something. She will, in fact, need him. Hmmm. There are a lot of possibilities implicit in that idea, and all of them involve some answers.

It’s not until long after he’s gone home, leaving Beckett standing, radiating pain, despair and stress, in the child’s bedroom, letting him take photos but not encouraging him to stay, that he remembers that small children have comfort objects. Cuddly soft toys that they won’t go anywhere without – at least, not without a tremendous amount of noise and fuss that even earbuds wouldn’t block out. He bounces out of his bed and looks at the photos again. There’s a remarkable absence of the child’s pink rabbit (he remembers that from the other photos). He’s dressed and out and on his way back to the parents’ house as fast as he can manage it. Finally, he thinks, they might have a break that leads somewhere.

When he gets there, let in by the uniform on the door, he goes straight to the bedroom. Beckett’s asleep there, but for once he has no time to look at her – he tells himself he doesn’t want to, and knows he lies – because he has to find out if the pink rabbit is anywhere in the room.

It’s not. Beckett wakes half-way through, with an odd noise, as if something’s hurting. Castle puts it down to her sleeping in a chair, and forgets it immediately in the blazing knowledge that he’s got them a lead. There is no bunny.

They have a hurried confabulation and then inform Sorenson. And then they all three go to get the child and the bunny. It was all staged: a put-up job so the wife needn’t pay alimony to her workshy husband. The only bright spot is the view of Beckett cuddling the little girl – and pink rabbit – and for once not being alpha at all on the job. Presumably it would frighten the child. It frightens pretty much everyone else. It’s a very intriguing sight, Beckett being all soft and vaguely maternal. In fact, it’s the way he’d like – _No!_ Absolutely not.

Fresh off the back of a considerable success (and beating the Feds to the answer, which makes everyone very happy indeed, except the Fed, of course, who slinks off with his tail between his legs. Which is where, in Castle’s firm opinion, it should stay. Certainly the Fed’s tail should stay well away from Beckett) Castle once again wanders into Montgomery’s office, shutting the door quite meaningfully behind him.

“Castle? What do you want?” Montgomery smiles, though. He’s just as happy to get one over on the Feds as anyone else in the NYPD.

“D’you want to come for a drink sometime soon? I wanna talk to you about this shadowing business.”

Montgomery raises an eyebrow.

“Really? You got enough already? Wouldn’t have thought so, but okay.” He looks worried. Castle doesn’t disabuse him of his worries. The more worried Roy is, the more likely he is to get answers, and besides which maybe next time Roy won’t manipulate him without him knowing.


	16. That sleep of death

Beckett’s permanently present headache is not improving. She painfully completes her paperwork, noting that Castle is missing and further noting that he is talking to Montgomery. Maybe he’s quitting. That would be good, she tells herself, and knows that she lies. Since this case began, she hasn’t had the opportunity to bury her toxic addiction to what he can give her under her equally toxic addiction to her mother’s case, and if she can’t have one she needs the other. Except she’s been cold turkey on both and the effort she has put in to stay that way has been immense.

A nasty little thought weasels itself into her brain. It says: _you should at least tell him that you didn’t think he’d tell your secrets_. _That it wasn’t him you were ashamed of_. She spends the next hour trying to rip it out, which only makes her headache worse. Saying that won’t fix anything. _But it would help_ , temptation whispers. _It might help_. She hadn’t missed Castle’s mood whenever he was around Will, though she’d put it down to dog-in-the-manger rather than any real desire to be with her. _It might just help. And you’ll feel better._ Well, she can’t feel any worse. She’s exhausted and she cannot shift this headache. She hopes wearily that there will be a couple of days before the next body drops. They’re all due some time in lieu: maybe she’ll spend it asleep. She packs up her purse and clears her desk, ready for a fast exit.

Castle finally vacates Montgomery’s office, looking profoundly self-satisfied. _Now or never, Kate_. She briefly considers the benefits of _never_ , and then decides that at least if she takes some action she will feel less out-of-control.

“Have you got a minute, Castle?” She can’t summon up any covering emotion for her weariness.

“Sure,” he says coolly, and follows her to the conference room, where she shuts the door heavily behind them.

But it takes her a minute, her hands twisting together till she realises what she’s doing, or revealing, and stops, to start: Castle standing silent. She’s manoeuvred their relative positions so that she can say her piece and get out without anyone being able to stop her.

“The other night… It wasn’t about being ashamed of you. I’m sorry. I know you wouldn’t have said anything but I can’t risk anyone finding out,” she rushes out in one breath, turns on her heel and is gone from the room and the bullpen before Castle shuts his dropped jaw.

 _Say what, Beckett_? He replays and parses her blurted out sentence. The only bit he needs to hear is _It wasn’t being ashamed of you. I know you wouldn’t have said anything_. All the rest is entirely irrelevant, because he’d already worked out the last part.

His first coherent thought is _I shouldn’t have thrown her spare key back at her_. Because now he has no way to go after her and finish this discussion properly: at least, none which doesn’t depend upon her opening the door. Hard upon the heels of that thought he remembers that he’d offered Montgomery a drink soon, which might as well be tonight, and that if Montgomery has seen Beckett leaving in the state she’s just been in, he’ll be even more worried than he was. Mmmm. This could work out quite nicely. He won’t be going after Beckett tonight. That can wait. He doesn’t need to chase after her: after that little admission he can afford to take some time and do it properly. He smiles seraphically into thin air and exits the conference room to find, as expected, a complete absence of Beckett while Montgomery, and indeed the boys, are all sporting furrowed brows.

“What happened there?” Montgomery questions. Castle shrugs.

“I don’t know. Beckett just wanted to say thanks for the suggestion about the rabbit. Then she left.” Castle is fairly sure no-one believes him, but he’s also fairly sure that none of them will call him on it. It’s a sufficiently plausible statement that all of them can pretend to believe it.

“D’you want a beer, then?”

“Sure. I need it after having the Feebs around all week. They make my teeth itch.”

 _They make my toes itch to boot them up the ass_ , Castle thinks unkindly, and only says, “Okay, let’s go.”

Castle intends to be on his own territory for this discussion, and therefore takes Montgomery not to a cop bar, nor a sports bar, but to the establishment he once used to write in, and where he still hangs out on the odd occasion he needs reminded of who he used to be. He acquires two smooth whiskeys and a booth not too near the noisy bunch at the bar.

For a few moments neither of them say anything, sizing up each other in an unobtrusive way, sipping the whiskey and gradually relaxing from the effects of the day. Castle, who knows the value of silence even if he doesn’t often practice it, is quite content to wait. Montgomery’s wrinkled forehead tells him that it won’t be that long before he says something.

It’s not.

“So, Castle, what did you think of the Feds’ way of working? Bit different from ours.”

“Yeah, it sure is. More electronics, for a start. They have some really cool equipment.”

“They’ve got the budget. We don’t.” Montgomery looks envious. “We have to rely on brains and muscle. We can’t just put a tap on a phone or call the profiler or get DNA – or even prints – in half a day.”

“So how do you make it work, then? If the only thing you can do is team people up, how do you sort them out so that the teams work best?”

Montgomery looks like no-one’s ever asked him that before. He takes a deep breath, and Castle recognises the impending flood of words of a man who – for the first time ever – is being encouraged to expound on his favourite theory: man-management. Which Castle intends to steer gently towards woman-management too. Person management, if he’s being politically correct. He shakes off the distraction and listens attentively.

“You’d think it would be easy,” Montgomery starts. “They’re all – well, mostly – good cops by the time I pick ‘em, and the few bad apples get shaken out of my precinct pretty fast. You’d think they’d all get on: after all, we’re all after the bad guy.” He shakes his head at the naivety of that idea. “It’s not like that at all. Most of ‘em are pretty competitive, and some of them don’t get along at all. Sometimes I can fix that. Sometimes not.”

“How d’you try to fix it?”

“First off, a lot of the time it’s just that they don’t know each other. Fix that by making sure different pairs work together on different cases.” Castle frowns.

“But I’ve never seen anyone work with Beckett, Ryan and Esposito.   How come?” Montgomery smiles slowly. Not being stupid, he’s got an idea where Castle wants to go with that question, and suddenly he’s entirely relieved. Castle, he is now sure, and despite Castle’s misleading statements earlier, has no intention of quitting the precinct at all.

“That’s a different kettle of fish. We’ll get to the exceptions later.” He looks at his glass. “Any chance of another, to smooth my throat? You’ll have a hundred questions.”

“Sure.” Castle waves at the barman and another two arrive.

“After that it’s about personalities. You don’t always want two really strong personalities together. Means you can’t switch tracks on a witness or a suspect. So maybe I pair a softer type with a harder. Same with smarts. Smarts are all well and good, but two brainiacs don’t make a good pair. They don’t see emotions, or anything that’s not logical.”

“Like two Mr Spocks?”

“Yeah,” Montgomery grins. “Or two Scotties. Doesn’t work.” Castle’s given up trying to remember this and has pulled out his travelling notebook. He’s scribbling frantically in his own personal – and entirely illegible – shorthand. When he catches up, Montgomery waiting for him to stop scrawling, he looks up.

“So you need a pair that’s different, so you get the widest options and experience?”

“Suppose so.”

“So that’s the way you usually do it. So how come Ryan, Esposito and Beckett? That doesn’t seem to fit…” He trails off, stops, and starts again. “At least – it sort of fits. They’re all three really different.”

Montgomery grins widely. “You know, Castle, you could just ask outright what you wanna know, ‘stead of weaselling around hoping I won’t notice.”

Castle winces, takes a slug of his whiskey, and reluctantly admits to himself that Montgomery has clearly got his measure sometime in the last half hour.

“Okay. How come you knew that pairing Beckett and Espo would work out? They’ve got nothing in common at all, and they’re both very strong personalities. You said a minute ago that doesn’t work.”

“Okay. Lemme finish all what I’m gonna say before you say anything more.” Castle nods. “Beckett’s a woman.” Castle opens his mouth and then shuts it again. “It’s a whole different dynamic. And she’s able to switch track herself. You’ve seen it. Esposito needed to understand that there was more to Homicide than being the toughest guy in the room, and Beckett needed someone as tough as she is to back her up and call her out if she was going off the rails. And they both needed to understand that different doesn’t mean worse.” He smiles happily. “I didn’t know it would work out, but I had a hunch, so I followed it. Sometimes you just get lucky.”

Montgomery raises a mildly celebratory glass and takes a drink.

“So why Ryan, then?” Montgomery looks a little furtive, a bit embarrassed, and quite a lot guilty.

“Beckett was getting a bit intense about everything. Working too hard, too long, and we had so much on that I couldn’t stop it. Espo wasn’t able to rein it in. I decided we needed another Detective, and for once I had the budget for it. I’d had my eye on this Narcotics guy for a while. Right skills to fit in, and – well, I had another hunch about him. It worked out just the way I wanted it to. Three’s an odd number, but it seems to work for them.”

“And you never put anyone with them?”

“I tried. It never worked out. Those three don’t talk much” – he glares at an innocent patch of table – “and no-one else could work with them when everything they did seemed to come from three swapped glances and two gestures to that damn murder board. If they exchanged six words per day I’ll eat my shield.” He shakes his head. “And then they could do all the crazy ones that no-one else ever had a clue about. So I kept them on the crazy ones and didn’t interfere.   Keeps 1PP off my back, for sure.”

There’s a long pause. Castle is considering this version of history stacked against Espo and Ryan’s version, and finding one or two very interesting differences, chiefly in the reasons for adding Ryan. He’s also noticed that Montgomery hasn’t exactly ventured into the territory of why he let Castle in. He times his next question very carefully to finish just as Montgomery’s taken another mouthful of whiskey.

“If nobody else worked out with them – why didn’t you make a fuss about me shadowing Beckett?”

Montgomery chokes and splutters. He’s very satisfyingly purple in the face when Castle claps him ungently on the back. Revenge is very sweet, and Castle is intending to make sure that Roy knows not to try this on him again. At least, not without Castle’s full agreement. He carries on.

“After all, you just said you didn’t interfere with them because they worked as a unit and no-one else fitted in.” He smiles sweetly. “So why’d you risk disrupting it? Politics?” Montgomery looks thoroughly offended.

“No way. This is my house and no-one tells me what to do in it.” He slams his lips together far too late, understanding what he’s revealed.

“So you had a reason.” Castle’s voice is a little harder. “How about sharing the reason, Roy? Might be a good plan to share it with the man you thought would execute your little scheme.” Montgomery winces very slightly, and says nothing in favour of gulping a large slug of his drink. Castle employs silence for long enough for Montgomery to understand that he’s intending to get an answer, and then opens up again.

“Roy, you can bring me in on your plan or you can watch me walk away and fuck it up for you. You want something from me, you tell me what it is. I’m not going in blind any more.”

Montgomery’s face twists unpleasantly, as if he’s smelt something bad. Possibly, Castle thinks, it’s the stench of his own concealment.

“Ryan and Espo work better together than I’d hoped. But it leaves Beckett doing more work solo than I’d like, and I couldn’t find anyone who fitted into the three of them. And then she started doing more overtime, and getting more stressed. It got better just after Christmas, for a while, then it started getting worse again. Then you appeared, and something changed. Dunno what exactly, but you fitted into the team, Beckett seemed a little less wired after the first couple of weeks, and you weren’t useless, so when you wanted to stick around that worked for me. And you don’t come out of my budget, either.” He fixes Castle with a hard stare. “So why are you sticking around?”

“I want to. It’s interesting, and the book’s going well. I like being a part of the team.”

Montgomery raises one very sceptical eyebrow and maintains the hard stare. Castle grins. “And Beckett is seriously hot.” It’s better than the truth, and Montgomery will believe it.

Or not.

“Now why don’t I believe that?” Montgomery drawls dangerously. “You wanna tell me the truth, or you want me to tell you it? You aren’t just here because of that. There’s more to it.”

Castle preserves a poker face and doesn’t twitch a muscle. Montgomery is far too close to guessing more than Castle wants him to know. There’s a pregnant silence, into which Castle declines to toss any words at all.

“You mess her up, and you’ll be messing with me. Something’s already off, and I don’t think it’s just seeing her ex again. You’re here just as long as the team works better with you than without you.”

Castle bristles.

“I’ll be here just as long as I think I need to research. I’m not on your payroll and if I think it’s time to leave I will.” He glares back at Montgomery, just as intently.

After a minute Montgomery holds his hands up and grins. “Okay, then. I won’t ask and you won’t walk out without giving me some notice. Deal?”

“Deal.”

“Now, shall we have another drink and talk about something else?”

* * *

Beckett is perfectly well aware that she has fled. In her own defence, her headache is now well past splitting and firmly into please-god-let-me-die-now territory, and she gets a cab home because she’s incapable of driving safely and cannot face the subway, leaving her car at the precinct.

As soon as she gets in she chokes down another batch of Advil and goes straight to bed, barely managing to cleanse her makeup. Standing in a shower is more effort than she can bear. A couple of hours later she wakes, the headache barely dented by the sleep or Advil, far too hot even without covers. She falls back to an uncomfortable doze, and is shortly too cold, burying herself back under the comforter. It becomes borne upon her aching head and body that in fact she is not simply exhausted, she is actually ill. She would be deeply offended by that – she never gets ill – if she didn’t feel so awful. She gives up and collapses into the weakness that – she dimly comprehends – she must have been fighting off for a few days now: adrenaline overcoming everything as she fought to save the case. Her last conscious thought is something like _It’s not fair, I can’t be ill, my mom’s case is waiting_.

She’s woken by her phone. It’s Esposito.

“Beckett, where are you? ‘S past shift start.”

“Ill,” she forces out. “Lea’ me ‘lone.”

“You sound like shit. I’ll report it in. An’ if you come back too early I’ll take you home myself.” It’s not like Esposito to play mom. She’s too foggy-headed to wonder why.

“Wha’?”

“Take a break, Beckett. We got this.” And he cuts the call before she can cut through her blanket of pain to comment.

It takes everything she’s got to get to the bathroom – a necessity – and then fill her glass with water, drink it and refill it and return to bed without spilling it. She’s asleep again in instants, the heavy weight of illness dragging her down into nightmare and discomfort: too hot and too cold by turns; her recent cases dancing in her pounding head. Brief wakings to go to the bathroom and drink leave her wrung out and plunged back into the maelstrom of pain and exhaustion.

* * *

Castle wanders in with the beginnings of a scheme in mind, casts a casual greeting around and only then notices that he only gets two responses. Even over the previous couple of weeks Beckett has managed a cool, unemotional and completely uninformative greeting. Today there is none. There is also no Beckett, when he looks at her desk. There is no sign that there has ever been a Beckett.

“She’s ill,” Esposito says. Castle’s first, unworthy, thought is that she’s feigning illness to avoid him. “I called her to find out where the hell she was. She sounded like shit.” Oh. That’s not good. That’s really not good. He sits down automatically and then scoots his chair over to Espo and Ryan.

“What do we do today?”

“ _We_ do paperwork,” says Ryan bitterly, making a gesture that shows his view of paperwork pretty clearly. “ _You_ get to do whatever the hell you like, you lucky bastard.”

“I could help,” Castle says, much to his own amazement. “I can type pretty well.”

The boys look at him, utterly astounded. “ _You_?” they blurt in unison. “ _You_ are offering to help with the paperwork?”

“He’s ill,” Ryan says.

“He’s batshit crazy,” Espo responds, unflatteringly.

“He’s going home,” Montgomery says from behind all three of them. “No Beckett, no shadowing. Detective Esposito, where is Detective Beckett?”

“She’s ill, sir. I called her and she was right out of it.” Montgomery frowns.

“Hm.” He pauses. “Okay. Do what you can without her. Castle, you’re not required. You’re a distraction when there’s no case. Go home. I’ll make sure someone calls you when the next body drops.”


	17. Darkness as a bride

It takes Beckett two days more to be able to get out of bed and reach the kitchen, and coffee. Even that leaves her disturbingly tired and fragile, and not eating for three days has left her thinner. She didn’t need, or want, to be thinner. But takeout doesn’t appeal, and cooking is too much effort. She collapses back into her bed and is shortly asleep again. This time, though, it’s more restful and less tormented.

On the fourth day she feels much better, dresses, and manages to walk, only a little shakily, to get the subway to work, telling herself she’s fine all the way, and ignoring how relieved she is to sit down at her desk. She spends a little time arranging her papers, which has the happy effect that her knees stop wobbling, and then makes herself a coffee in the break room in a larger than usual mug without admitting that the reason she hadn’t stopped to get her normal order at her usual coffee bar, and the reason this mug is larger than the coffee, is because she didn’t trust herself to carry the full cup without spilling it.

Sitting back down is again a relief. But she can read, and she can type, and she can sign her name on her reports. Therefore she can work.

So she does. Slowly, painfully, and painstakingly: nothing like her normal fast, intelligent grip on each matter on her desk – but she’s managing. Coping. Here. Herself. Her ordinary, precinct self. Back to life. Really.

Some time when she wasn’t looking Esposito and then Ryan have showed up. Rather fortunately, Beckett isn’t watching them, as concentrating on her own work is quite enough effort without adding concentrating on the boys. She wouldn’t be impressed if she could see their appalled expressions.

“What the fuck is she doing here?” Esposito mutters blackly.

“Working,” Ryan points out.

“She shouldn’t be. She looks like shit. She should be home.”

“You gonna tell her that?” Esposito stares at Ryan as if he’s grown two heads.

“You as crazy as Beckett? Course not. I like my guts right where they are.” He grins, a little evilly. “I’m going to watch what happens when the Captain and Castle get here.” Ryan raises his eyebrows. “I reckon the Captain’s gonna send her home – ‘bout lunchtime, when she falls asleep in her sandwich. An’ I bet you ten that Castle takes her – Captain’ll tell him, or he’ll do it without that.” He smiles with a few too many teeth and an even more evil expression. “Our boy there was just a little too uninterested in Beckett last time we had a beer, don’tcha think? An’ that lie about what happened in the conference room wasn’t even trying hard.”

“Done.” They shake on it.

Not long after, Montgomery briskly walks in, greets everyone, gets as far as his office and then turns sharply to regard Beckett with a beady eye and discouraging expression. Since she seems to be alive, he says nothing. Yet. His private bet with himself is that he’ll be sending her home by lunchtime. Castle can take her. He’s expendable. Thinking of which, Montgomery taps out Castle’s number, and informs him that Beckett’s back. Then he starts to count. His second private bet is that Castle will be here as fast as a cab will carry him. He’s right, too. Castle appears in rather less than fifteen minutes. Montgomery doesn’t ask what he bribed the taxi driver with to achieve that, and without twitching a single muscle of his face ticks off another reason to conclude that Castle is largely here because of Beckett – not, note, because of _shadowing_ Beckett. It’s all working out just the way he’d planned.

Beckett’s pace of work slows further and further over the morning, and by eleven she’s leaning on her hand and pretty much out of it.

“You should be home,” Esposito tells her firmly, having decided that Beckett is now incapable of extruding his intestines without anaesthetic. Watching her fade is ruining his concentration.

“I’m fine,” is all he gets in response. Ryan makes a rude noise of disbelief. Castle says nothing. He hasn’t said much all morning, except for occasional, cool-voiced questions about the paperwork and variants on _would you like a coffee_?

“You ain’t fine at all. You should go home an’ rest.”

“Leave it, Espo. You’re not my boss.”

“No, but I am,” Montgomery says crisply. “You shouldn’t have come in and you’re not fit to be on duty. Bad decision, Detective. You’re going home.”

Beckett looks up through dulled eyes at Montgomery’s implacable face. “Yes sir,” she says resignedly. She picks up her phone and purse and stands. Everyone sees her wobble till she puts her hand on the back of the chair to steady herself. Someone draws in a breath. It might have been due to the wobble. It might equally have been due to Castle rising and suddenly close behind her, not quite supporting her. Even through her fog of exhaustion and remnants of illness she has the sudden feeling that he’s between her and the world again.

She can’t afford that. She can’t afford to look as if she needs support, and can’t bear for it to come from Castle anyway. He’d made it perfectly clear that they’re through, weeks ago. Not that they were ever together. She shakes her head to dislodge that thought, immediately wishes she hadn’t as pain stabs through it, and grips the supporting chair till her knuckles turn white. She wants to sit back down, but she won’t.

“Castle, you’re not needed here. Ryan and Esposito are,” Montgomery states. There is no possibility of arguing with that tone. “You make sure Detective Beckett gets home okay.”

Behind Montgomery’s back, Esposito holds his hand out to Ryan, who slaps ten into it with ill grace.

“I don’t need an escort, sir,” Beckett says with a semblance of her normal tones. “I’ll be fine.”

“Castle will take you home. That’s an order. Your car is cluttering up my precinct parking and you’re not fit to drive so he will. Give him your keys, Detective.”

Beckett fumbles in her purse and hands the keys over with even less grace than Ryan had used a moment ago. Every inch of her body is indicating _No_. Since every inch of her face is indicating that she’s nowhere near fit to stay in the precinct, Montgomery ignores her clear distaste for the idea that Castle will drive and proceeds to improve the shining hour once more.

“I don’t want you back here in the next two days, Detective, and you are not on shift this weekend. If you can’t take a case, you’re no use here. Don’t appear till Monday, when you might be capable of actually working. Right now, you’re a danger to yourself and others.” He doesn’t soften his words one whit. Beckett needs to understand that in this state she is a liability not an asset. “Take her away, Castle.” He turns back to his office before anyone can say anything, including Castle, who would have had quite a lot to say about Montgomery’s high-handed manner of ordering him about if he had not realised marginally _before_ he opened his mouth that this is his best chance of getting explanations, Beckett-kitten and Beckett’s spare key back; not to mention that his protective instincts are screaming at him to take care of her, whether he likes them to, or wants to, or not.

Castle allows Beckett to precede him into the elevator – it’ll give him a chance to catch her if (or when) her knees give: he hadn’t missed the wobble or the tight grasp of her fingers on the chair. He also doesn’t miss that she’s leaning heavily on the wall, and seems barely able to lift her head.

“You don’t have to do this,” she forces out. “Give me my keys back and I’ll get myself home. I don’t need any help.”

“Really?” He looks her up and down. “You can’t even stand up straight, still less drive. You’d kill someone, or yourself.”

“You don’t want to do this. I’m giving you an out, Castle. Take it.” She sounds drained.

“I’m taking you home. I’m not gonna be responsible for an accident. Some innocent party might get hurt.”

He doesn’t say anything more. That hadn’t been intended to sting, but it obviously had. Beckett has curled right into herself and if she might have raised her head a moment ago she isn’t doing so now. There’s a small, ominous stain on the floor which seems to be fascinating her. The air is chill around her, July or not, and the effort she is now making to stay on her feet is palpable. Still, she walks out the elevator, though staggers might be a more accurate word to use, on her own.

“Shotgun, Beckett.”

She’s automatically aiming for the driver’s side. He equally automatically reaches out to redirect her. It swiftly becomes clear that this was a horrible mistake, right about the point he finds that a gesture and touch intended to be a minor redirection has resulted in her losing her balance and falling. He really couldn’t have failed to catch her; he could never have let her – let anyone, it’s not her, it’s anyone – fall. (But it’s she that he’s stopping falling into the dark.) It’s just that he didn’t have to pull her to him and tuck her in and hold her close. He didn’t have to, and he wasn’t going to, and yet he has, and did, and is.

She didn’t have to pull away, and yet she’s feebly tried to, and yet despite that he can’t let her go until he’s settled her into her unfamiliar passenger seat: she now small and crumpled and sick: unresisting; clicking her seatbelt into place herself.

She doesn’t say anything as he adjusts seat and mirrors to his own frame, and when he glances over her lashes are down on her white face: a sharp delineation against a sharper structure than he’s used to. He starts off smoothly and competently drives them to her block, finds a space – luckier than they deserve, perhaps: it’s right by the door – and neatly reverse parks into it. Beckett hasn’t said a single word since the engine was turned on, and when he turns to her to inform her that they’ve arrived he finds out why: she’s out cold.

This presents a problem. Castle is big enough to carry Beckett – as long as the elevator is working: he doesn’t fancy three flights of stairs – but it’s a little awkward to open doors whilst manoeuvring a long-legged bundle of unconsciousness. It’s hard enough doing that with a small child, and Beckett is neither small nor a child. The thought of carrying Beckett even the few steps across the sidewalk is also unattractive. It might be late morning on a working day, but idiots with cell phone cameras are now everywhere, and it would be just his luck to be caught on one, which would be an entirely unnecessary complication right now. He sighs heavily. He’ll just have to wake her up.

So that’s what he does. It takes some effort, and is only finally achieved when he shakes her shoulder far more forcefully than he’d wanted to.

“Wha’?”

“Wake up, Beckett. You’re home.” He very carefully doesn’t say _We’re home_. He, after all, is not. “I’m not carrying you into your building.”

“What?”

“You’re home. C’mon.” He walks round and opens her door politely. When she doesn’t move he leans over, undoes her seatbelt – it seems that pressing the release is a feat beyond her at present – puts both hands on her waist and simply hoists her out of the car. Since he doesn’t want her to fall over again, he deliberately doesn’t let go of her with one hand while closing and locking the car with the other. So he tells himself. Fortunately there doesn’t appear to be anyone around. Equally fortunately, supporting her with one hand is relatively discreet.

None of which explains why, as soon as the building door has closed, his support becomes considerably less discreet and involves holding on to Beckett in a much more noticeable fashion. At least, Castle notices. Beckett is noticing nothing outside putting one foot in front of the other and the elevator in front of her. His arm firmly around her doesn’t seem to register at all.

He’s still holding her keys, which Beckett hasn’t realised and isn’t, therefore, arguing about. She doesn’t have the strength to argue, he believes, even if she would want to, and Castle forestalls the whole issue by unlocking her door before she has the time to think. He has a plan. Not a very honourable plan, but he’s well past worrying about that. (She needs someone – _him_ – to take care of her. He pretends he doesn’t think that, and knows he lies.) He wants, he tells himself, to finish the discussion from which Beckett ran away – okay, maybe she was already ill, but still, she fled, and he is quite done with all this fleeing – and then he intends to leave her to sleep, go home himself, and consider his options. And since she’s not her normal self, he might actually have a chance of obtaining some answers.

And so he opens the door, steers Beckett inside, closes it behind him by the simple method of pushing it with his foot, and relocates Beckett to her couch. He doesn’t sit next to her, and he doesn’t touch her further, instead he sits across from her where he can watch – _observe_ – her reactions, and tells himself with a complete lack of honesty that he wants answers a lot more than he wants kitten-Kat. If he were being even partly truthful, he’d acknowledge that he wants both, approximately equally. If he were being wholly truthful, he’d acknowledge that he wants both the kitten and the alpha-Detective, as well as that he’s actually _had_ some answers. Not many, and mostly he’s worked it out himself, but some. Since he’s being entirely untruthful, he ignores his prickling conscience completely.

Before he has a chance to speak she does.

“Thank you,” she emits. “I appreciate you putting up with Montgomery’s diktats. You don’t need to do anything more for me. I’ll be fine.” She sounds absolutely exhausted. Her hands twitch as if she’s about to push herself up and leave the room, but can’t muster the effort. Her feet are out of her shoes.

“You will not.” What happened to getting answers? That was exactly not what he wanted to say. “You won’t be fine on your own at all.”

“Not your problem,” she sighs out on a scant breath.

“No,” Castle says bluntly, trying to drag his errant mouth and mind back to the track he intended to be on rather than the one he _is_ on. “My problem is why you won’t accept reality.”

“Reality?” She sounds hopelessly confused. Good. Confused is good. She deserves to be confused. God knows, he has been.

“It was you in the club. It was you and me. It wasn’t a dream. It’s real. I took care of you.”

She shakes her head, slowly, not looking up from her hands twisting in her lap. “No…” She summons a last fragment of energy and stands; stumbles for the bedroom. She can’t do this. She can’t have this discussion when she’s fully fit, never mind when all she wants is sleep.

She’s vaguely aware that Castle is following her, but she’s in no state to care. All she wants is rest, and respite. He’ll leave. He already did. No need to answer, even if she knew the answers. She can’t think through the fuzz in her head to wonder why he’s even bothered saying that.

Castle follows Beckett.

She slumps down on the edge of the bed: takes off her gun, lays it on the nightstand; takes off her watch, ditto; takes off the chain with her mother’s ring on it – and at that gesture Castle abruptly realises that she has never once worn that chain when she has come to him. Not once, not ever – and he had removed it when he’d come here.

Oh. Oh oh oh _oh_. One matter _or_ the other, but never both. _The switch that flips her from off to on_ – but is that switch the pretty collar or the lack of the chain? Even by the standards of complicated to which the previous three months have introduced him, this is brain-bendingly difficult. Add in the propensity for her to go down into the dark where the monsters play (and now he wonders – is he one of the monsters? And if he is, is that bad or good?) and this is suddenly not simple at all.

One thing is simple, though. One thing is very, very simple.

“You don’t get to pretend any more. Not here, not with me. _I_ tell you when you need me; _I’m_ the one who keeps you out of trouble. Me. Not some dream or fantasy. Me. Right now you need me. You needed me three days ago, but you didn’t ask.” He sits on the edge of the bed.

“You left…” she drags out, as if that’s any sort of an answer to anything. “You left,” Beckett says again, as if it’s what she’s hanging on to. “You don’t wanna be with me. That’s okay.” It’s as if she didn’t hear a single word he’s just said.

Castle emits an exasperated noise.

“You were the one who said you didn’t want to be seen with me and didn’t explain why.   You’re the one who said you were ashamed.” She doesn’t get to think that he just upped and left. She has to explain her own actions: say it in plain words and confirm his deductions; realise that she pushed him away.

Anger overcomes exhaustion. “I told you there and then and you left because of it. I _won’t_ risk my job and my life because you want to play this out in public. You might not tell but you live your whole life in the open. I don’t.” Her voice is rising. “Use your imagination. You’ve got plenty of that. What’s going to happen if this goes public? Someone’s going to find out about that club. Someone’s going to leak it. Rick Castle meets NYPD Barbie at a D/S club? Your reputation” – she spits the word out – “can take it. Mine can’t. I’ll have no job and no life and when you move on I’ll be fucked, all ways up.”

She turns away and curls up in the bed, her back to him, face buried out of sight. “You were right. We’re done with this. It should never have begun.” Her voice is very nearly steady. “The backpack’s in the closet. Take it and go. Find someone who’ll be able to play with you the way you want. No point you staying here. I’m not what you want and you already said so.”

She can feel his weight lifting from the bed, hear his feet stepping to the closet, his hands picking up the backpack, his feet walking away. Before there are enough steps to reach the door of her room, she hears the backpack opening. Checking that everything’s there, she thinks, so he’s got it for someone else; and refuses to move or look up. He should have left it as it was three weeks ago. It could never have worked. Her eyes drift closed, hiding the moisture gathering within them. The footsteps continue to the door, and the door closes.

And then weight dents the edge of the bed again and the collar closes round her neck and instead of lying curled into her pillows, without any input from her at all Beckett is sitting curled into Castle.


	18. Death will have his day

“No.   I am not done with this discussion and _neither are you_. That’s not what you want. You’d never have kept this” – he shakes the backpack – “if you didn’t. You’re mine and you’re staying mine till you tell me differently.”

There’s what would have been an incoherent splutter if it weren’t clear that _his_ kitten can’t even hold herself up right now. Which is quite convenient, because it gives Castle a chance to make his views transparently clear without being shot or strangled.

He traces a finger round her neck, around the delicate collar, reminding her that it’s there; reminding her what it means; reminding her who he is, and who she is, and who they can be.

“You want this.” He follows by drawing a line down her arm and closes his hand around her wrist. “And you want this.” He runs his other hand into her hair and uses that to tip her head back so he can see her face. “And you want me.” But he doesn’t kiss her. Instead, he pauses. She’s in no state for kisses, and anyway that’s not where he’s at right now.

“I’ll tell you when you need me, and right now you need me. Don’t you, kitten?” When she doesn’t answer he pulls very gently till her eyes come up to meet his. “Answer me.” Under the harder, demanding tone, he’s holding his breath, metaphorically; because the tone might recall her to what they have been and can be but he is absolutely not certain that it’s going to go well. But he’s put the necklace on her and called her kitten and she hasn’t used her safe word. Yet.

“Shouldn’t,” floats faintly into the silence. She’s looking past him, not at him.

“That’s not an answer, _kitten_.” The emphasis is fully intentional, to recall to her that in this position _he_ asks the questions and _she_ answers. “Look at me. You need me. Don’t you?” He holds her gaze.

“Yes. You,” whispers past him, and she falls into him, strings cut. He pushes her back up, holds her very slightly away from him, catches her eyes once more.

“This is not a dream. You are not going to wear a mask. I am not going to wear a mask. In here _this is who you can be_.” _Can._ If she wants to be.

Another faint _yes_ ghosts past his ears.

He becomes aware that he is now holding her up, and lets her fall back against him. He’s laid out how it can be, and she’s agreed. His feelings of intense frustration and irritation start to drain away, and the longer he holds on to his kitten the faster they leave. One last matter, though, to complete her current surrender. If she’ll agree… then they have a chance.

“Where’s your spare key?”

Her eyes slide very slightly towards the drawer in the nightstand; her hand moves a fraction towards it in assent. “There. Take it.”

Castle stretches slightly, locates and removes the key, noticing in passing the other item occupying the drawer, and slips it on to his own key ring.

“What’re you doing?” she slurs tiredly.

“You need to sleep. I’m going home to let you sleep, and later I’m coming back, when you’re in a better state to think.” _And I’m not taking the chance that you can’t let me in_ , he thinks. Not _won’t_. _Can’t_.

She doesn’t say anything at all. Castle lays her tidily down on the bed, still fully dressed, noticing that her lashes have fallen most of the way to her cheekbones, and runs a finger over her jawline to trace the collar. She makes a quiet little murmur, slips a hand around her pillow, and curls up in just the same way he had seen her do previously: closed and defensive. He doesn’t succumb to the temptation to kiss her, undress her, or tuck her in. If he does, he won’t go. The rhinestones glint in the shards of sunlight through her windows.

He thinks she’s already asleep as he leaves, quietly, with the backpack.

* * *

His loft is empty and peaceful: Alexis at school, his mother missing. He unpacks without too much wincing at the memories invoked, and restores the bracelets and keys to his own nightstand: the small domesticity of his domination. He’ll go back, later, without those toys and with only a single key: the collar stays on until he takes it off or she safe words out again. The thought gives him a pang of discomfort.

It’s not yet right. Better, but not right. He wants her to accept that they can be seen in public without risking anything – he doesn’t want to mess up her external life: he simply wants her to accept her other side. In private. And him, of course. She needs to accept him, and not be ashamed. He growls under his breath, at the thought that she might not.

He forces himself to his computer and his words, so that he might not simply turn back round and return to her apartment. Later. Oh yes. Later. If she weren’t still so obviously sick, there would be a number of possibilities for later. Instead, there are very few. He retrieves, after some reflection, one more item from the drawer in his nightstand, and slips it into his pocket, lest he should forget it later. Then he gives up on writing, which is only detouring into territory he certainly doesn’t want anywhere near a publishable book, puts his feet up on the desk, leans back and starts to think.

First, is it the collar or the ring on its chain? And does it really matter, as long as it’s one or the other? Maybe not. Leave that, for now. He can always test it empirically, late one night.

Next, her mother’s case. Or, more specifically, apparently diving straight back into her mother’s case, at exactly the point he’d walked out on her. (She should have explained then, he thinks again.) So many little things that others have said that add up to one coherent narrative: up till Christmas she was _getting worse_ , after that people seem to think that she was _better_. (Better than what?) That’s not coincidental, though. Oh no, it surely is not. Better, right about the point they… started? Met? Connected? And diving back in right about the point they – disconnected.

Next again – why is she running into the dark with the monsters? What’s her reality, if her _escape_ is down in the dark: a club, or the Lower East Side? He’d told her not to go running into the dark without him: maybe he can be the only dark she runs into. A monster, maybe – but a monster who’ll protect her. _Beauty and the Beast_ , reimagined for a different scene. She’d wanted the beast, among the other scenes. If a monster is what she needs – a monster is who he can be. _Her_ monster. He has a sudden errant picture of himself as the Incredible Hulk: green, massive and raging at the world: grins once, widely, and returns to his thinking, no longer grinning at all.

What’s alpha-Beckett running from? Glacier cool and notably imperturbable; never loses it, never out of control, tight team and the best solve rate on the hardest cases: what’s she escaping? What does she _need_ to escape, when success attends her?

Failure, of course.

Which does not at all explain why he’s only caught her at the end of some cases: when she’s crashing: when she’s danced with Death, or when she didn’t like the answer. She hasn’t failed then, she’s succeeded…

Oh. Not _then_ , but _them_. A single letter, to answer that conundrum. She hasn’t failed _them_ – she’s only failed herself. Down in the dark where she can hide from her own failure – or lost in the dream where the reality of failure doesn’t penetrate. Where she can’t fail – because she has no responsibilities, or burdens. Where she only has to let someone else tell her what to do and who she is and how to behave. There, she can’t possibly fail, because she doesn’t decide.

It all comes together in one instant. Chain coming off, or collar replacing it, whichever doesn’t matter; the door closing on the world where she has to succeed and can’t afford to fail; leaving reality behind for a short space of time; she also can’t afford for anyone to see her supposed weakness: her need for rest.

She has to succeed, because she can’t bear to fail; she can’t stop, because stopping is betrayal. So she’s killing herself to succeed. ( _Down in the dark_.) And total submission means that she is neither failing nor herself deciding to stop.

He sits up. All this thinking has occupied considerably longer than he had meant it to (he’s supposed to be intelligent, for God’s sake, as well as handsome and charming, and it’s taken him a ridiculously long time to think this through) and the noise he’s just heard is one of his redheads coming home. From the level of fuss and bustle, it’s his mother, which probably means that Alexis has been in for some time, peeped in, seen him lost in thought and left him to it.

He pads off to construct an attractive chicken-based salad involving pomegranate, figs and arugula, which has the considerable advantages that his mother can’t ruin it by trying to “help” or worse “improve” his effort and that it will keep very nicely in the fridge until his family choose to eat it later. Into the bargain, he likes cooking, he likes caring for his family, and, with both that and some answers having been achieved, he is now in a state of moderate contentment and easy-going relaxation.

For now, it being after six, he has things to do and people to see, as the saying goes.

* * *

Beckett had gone to sleep immediately, wrung out as she was. She wakes a couple of hours later, discovering (not for the first or last time) that sleeping in her clothes is uncomfortable, and that getting up to make something of the day is too much effort, strips and slides into old, comfortable pyjamas, not even able to think about picking up her current book. Shortly, despite her best efforts to keep her eyes open, she’s asleep again.

And that’s how she is when Castle quietly unlocks her door, listens, hears nothing and as quietly closes it, and then prowls through Beckett’s neat apartment until he discovers, without much surprise, her sleeping form, still tight-curled around her pillows, back shutting out the world. Quite how she made it to work, never mind through almost a whole morning, if she’s collapsed like this, he doesn’t know. For a moment, he just watches: until there’s a small wakeful noise breaking the silence, a small movement – _into_ herself, not stretching out as one normally does on waking – a flicker of the dark lashes.

“Staring is creepy, Castle,” she slurs, sleep-fuddled and her eyes still closed – and then they slam open. “What the _hell_? What are you doing here? How did you get in?” She sits bolt upright as her jaw drops open.

“Don’t you remember, kitten?” Castle purrs, settling himself down to sit on the bed. “You gave me the key, earlier, when I brought you home.” Beckett – it is currently, collar or not, Beckett, not his kitten – looks completely blank.

“I _what_?”

Castle smiles in a thoroughly predatory fashion. “You don’t remember? You agreed that you’d stop pretending this” – he strokes a hand up over her shoulder and leaves it insinuatingly cupping her cheek – “wasn’t real. You agreed it was you and me, and you let me take the key.”

There’s an extended silence in which dumbfoundment is the dominant note. Castle declines to take any steps to clarify the position, and similarly does nothing to either increase or reduce the tension evident in Beckett’s posture. Nor, however, does he remove his hand.

Beckett flops back on her pillows, turns away, and starts a gesture that looks very like she’s about to pull her covers over her head. Halfway through, she realises it, and stops.

She did _what_? Admitted it was real, and _gave him the key back_? She doesn’t remember any of that. She doesn’t remember anything much after she got in the car apart from a bitter exchange of views on his walking out… oh no. No. She didn’t. Surely not. No. It starts to come back to her. She’d told him to find a new playmate and he’d flat out refused; taken advantage of her befuddlement to pry out – oh fuck, truth she didn’t want to tell, oh God – answers. Oh, _hell_. Then he’d said he would be back later and she’d offered him a key. She’s gone straight back to looking for everything he can give her, without even pausing for breath; without a single thought of objection.

And here he is, and here she is, wanting him. _Hell_. This time she does pull the covers over her head. There’s a rumble of amusement above her.

“Very cute, kitten, but you’re not allowed to hide like that.” The covers are pulled back, and she finds herself looking into a pair of intent blue eyes. “Come out.” He sits her up firmly against her magically rearranged pillows and inspects her. “You’re too thin. Do I have to feed you too?”

Beckett’s mouth opens and shuts on a variety of unspoken, furious retorts, eventually landing on one.

“No. I can feed myself just fine.”

Castle’s eyes darken, but he doesn’t take the bait. Now. There are, he hopes, going to be times, in the very near future, when he will feed her. It’s very difficult to eat – well, dinner, anyway – if your hands are occupied. This is not a helpful thought right now. She has been – may still be – sick, and he really should not be thinking all the thoughts he is thinking.

It’s just that she’s in a bed, and wearing his necklet-collar, and she is delightfully crossly rumpled, although the flannel pyjamas could very usefully be absent, and he wants to prove her earlier surrender to him was no mistake or accident. But, necklet and bed notwithstanding, she is not in any state to be taken into the scene. That sort of a scene. On the other hand, she does need to be told to stop – if she’d listened to her own exhaustion, she might not have been quite so ill. She needs protected from herself, again.

He has an idea. He rises and prowls over to a door which appears very likely to hide a bathroom, and indeed does. Naturally, he doesn’t ask permission to act. That’s not how this rolls. He looks around. The shower is damp, from the morning, he assumes. The bath is bone dry. It doesn’t look as if it’s been used for a while, which is odd, because he’d had the clear impression that Beckett liked a bath at the end of the day. He shrugs that off. It’s irrelevant. He spots a bottle of bubble bath – cherry scented – smiles in sharp appreciation of his own cleverness and then turns the taps on fully, adding a generous dose of the bubble bath. The foam starts to rise immediately.

“A bath will make you feel better,” he says with cheerful command, walking back in. Beckett has gone back to curled up under the covers. Hiding. He pulls the covers back again, rather more emphatically, and reveals a whole Beckett in her very ugly flannel pyjamas. “Out you come.” This time he pulls her, rather than the comforter, till she’s sitting up. He makes a face at the pyjamas. “Anything would be better than those pyjamas,” he says disapprovingly, and then his face changes. “But nothing would be best of all.”

Beckett is behind the curve. “Bath?” How is this happening? How did she get from having been ditched by Castle three weeks ago to Castle lurking in her bedroom now, in possession of her spare key, and looming over her in a rather provocatively possessive fashion?

“Bath. Up you get.” He lifts her to her feet without much apparent effort, which is disconcerting; and then tucks her in to him so that she needs to make almost no effort to be upright, which is downright worrying.

“I don’t need a bath,” she mutters, still adorably cross. It’s still cute. Any moment now, she’ll pout. Though that will be exceedingly troublesome, because if she pouts, or bites her lip, or does anything at all to take his attention to her mouth, he _will_ kiss her. He’s exerting a great deal of control not to kiss her, or anything else, right now. He may be her monster, but he’s not an oafish lout.

“You don’t need one,” he agrees. “But you want one,” he purrs into her ear. “You want a hot, soothing bath, with the bubbles stroking over your skin and teasing where they burst. It’s not about getting clean, it’s about relaxing.” She softens, leaning on him, a little closer to the kitten and a little further away from Beckett. He pets her, just a little stroke of soft fingers to remind her that he’s caught her. “You need to relax. It’ll make you feel better.” A little more softening.

“I’m too tired,” she grumps, but it’s not exactly convincing. She tries to tug away to go back to her nice, comfortable bed. Something catches, scratching over Castle’s cotton shirt and resting against her neck – what the hell? Her fingers skim up and over her neck but her fuzz-brained state means she needs a second to work out why it’s not a chain but a –

“What the hell is this?” Tiredness is obliterated in flabbergasted fury.

“Evidence. Proof.” They _had_ this discussion, earlier, and Castle has no desire to resist the temptation simply to lay the fact of her surrender out there and see what she says now she’s awake and aware.

“Proof of _what_?” Now this is exceedingly interesting, if unfortunate. Seems that simply the collar is _not_ enough to switch from tiger to kitten. Tiger kitten, though. Tigers like water… this is not a helpful digression. Nor will it be enough to stop Beckett attempting to kill him quite shortly if he doesn’t take some further steps.

“Proof you said you’re mine.” Castle walks Beckett into the bathroom without quite having to manhandle her – or carry her – and succeeds in switching off the taps before the bath overflows. The mountain of bubbles is quite impressive, and he’d admire it, if he weren’t concentrating so hard on hoping that the next five minutes go firmly his way. He grins infuriatingly. “Shall I help you wash?” The silence that his words have provoked is extremely unlikely to continue for more than a very few more seconds.  

Or no seconds at all.

“I don’t _belong_ to you.” Castle quirks an eyebrow in an arrogant fashion indicative of total disbelief.

“Really?” he drawls. “You certainly acted like it.” There’s an infuriated splutter and a sharp push at his chest, which has no effect whatsoever. “No, you don’t. That won’t work.” He goes back to the main point. “You’re mine, you said so, and I’m keeping you until you say otherwise.” She’s quite connected enough now to do that.

And since her mouth is right there, he simply leans down and kisses her hard. After all, if she’s well enough to argue she’s well enough to be kissed. _Only_ kissed. Which doesn’t preclude him holding her tightly into him, to ensure he can kiss her properly. When he finally manages to lift off her mouth, her eyes are dark and the tempestuous expression on her face owes a great deal more to desire than anger.

“Mine,” he says. “My kitten, wearing my collar.” He looks down at her. “Stop running away, kitten. You want to run, run to me. If you don’t want to, you need to say so.” She simply stands silent, locked in his arms, exactly where she should have been for the previous three weeks. Would have been, had she talked – and he listened.

 _Caught_.


	19. Death and the maiden

“Now, kitten, you’re going to have your bath,” Castle purrs, “all by yourself, and smooth on your moisturiser, all by yourself, and find something pretty to wear that isn’t flannel pyjamas, all by yourself… and then come and sit with me.” He smiles darkly. “Or if you prefer I can stay here while you bathe.”

There’s a half-beat pause before she says, “No,” and it’s less decisive, less negative, than he’d expected.

“Are you sure about that, kitten?” he entices, beginning to play the game gently, despite his good intentions.

“Yes.” Oh well, he’ll wait.

He will surely wait. And then she’ll talk, till he’s got his answers and worked out the way forward. Which will _not_ involve her killing herself with work, or running off into the dark, or freaking out about being seen with him when he has no – never had any – intention of betraying her secrets. A certain amount of frustration is creeping back into his thinking and demeanour, and the soft splashing noises from behind the bathroom door are really not helping him think. He concentrates very hard on plot structure and characterisation of minor players – not Nikki Heat, not at all – and blocks out the sounds.

Very successfully, in fact. It takes him some time to realise that he has been pondering his plot for quite a few moments and the sloshing of water ceased a good while previously. However, there is no Kat, or Beckett, arriving beside him. He prowls off to find her, frustration renewed. It is time for them to _talk_.

Beckett had shut the bathroom door to avoid difficult thoughts or questions – not from Castle, but from her own head.   If she can’t see Castle, she won’t ask him to join her.

She slips out the pyjamas and into the bath. As the hot water and soft bubbles glide over her and she slides down into the warmth, she realises that this was exactly what she needed. She hums happily and quietly to herself. Why exactly had she been avoiding this? Which leads her to the disturbing thought that Castle had known what she needed, better than she had. Again. She tries to distract herself by slipping further into the bubbles and letting the heat seep into her flesh and bones and take the stress away. She should never have allowed herself to stop her evening bath ritual.

Her eyes drop shut as she leans back against the end of the bath, letting her mind float free and the water wash away all difficulties. Here in the privacy and scalding heat of her bathtub, she can take a little time to stop.

But thoughts intrude: they don’t stop as easily as all that. Chief among them is the nagging question of why she had been avoiding her tried and tested method of achieving calm: her end-of-day hot bath, full of soothing scents and oils, or soft bubbles.

Oh, yes. She’d not taken a bath because she hadn’t wanted the reminder of the story (and maybe because she’d have been tempted to re-enact it, and somehow Castle would have known, and she’d have been forced to admit to herself that she was inviting him into her desire at least as much as he’s invited her into his) and then she hadn’t wanted any reminders of any of it because it had all been taken away: her dream destroyed.

But now the faint scent of Castle is tainting the much stronger scent of cherry bubble bath and the heat wrapping round her is reminding her very firmly of a very different heat covering her. She ceases her half-hearted movement to exit the bath and lies back, drifting into vivid sensory memory: drowning without a struggle in recollected sensation.

Simply to let whatever may be to be; to let another decide; to accept… earlier, she must have accepted: he’s never played without consent and she’s sure he never would. She must have accepted, for the collar still to be on: he might have put it on before she did but would have taken it off again before he left, otherwise.

She must have accepted. Does it count if she wasn’t herself and doesn’t remember, too tired or ill to care? Or does it count for more, because her daytime self wasn’t getting in the way of her true self: submitting to her fears rather than to her desires – to Castle.

Fears rule her. Fear of failure, fear of exposure, fear of herself – fear of living, in case it should all be taken from her as her mother’s life had been, leaving others broken and mourning, cast into the dark. She hasn’t really lived at all, since. Half-hearted relationships with, most often, both feet out the door; never asking for or getting what she wanted or needed; spinning round an empty central void of unrealised dissatisfaction; spiralling downwards into the dark. She had briefly risen towards the light when Montgomery had stopped her furtive, solo, unauthorised investigations and brought in Ryan so that she could no longer claim to be staying because of the workload; then run straight back over the cliff into the dark not long ago. Until she’d chosen, one dark January night, between the known darkness beneath the bridge and the unknown darkness of a suspicious club, wearing a dress and collar she’d bought long before and never had the courage to wear.

She’s found a different darkness, now. But this darkness doesn’t stay in the night, it dogs her heels; the fiend that close behind her treads.   She’s been denying its reality for three – six – months now: pretending it’s all a dream, a fantasy, but now she has to face it. A further fragment of earlier returns: _Me. Not some dream or fantasy. Me_. The hard reality of Castle, not the pretence or story of an unknown, anonymous lover.

A demon to conquer her demons: the incubus to her succubus. She couldn’t truthfully, honestly say that she didn’t want or need it. Him. Both. Her thoughts circle around: finally centring around the unpleasant truth that if she’d only _explained_ they wouldn’t be in this mess. She’d let her fear dictate her words, and not explained. And it’s only the private aspects she’s scared to have exposed. How should anyone know, except she – or he, but that’s not likely if he hasn’t done so yet – tells them? Even if she’s seen out with him, even in a dress, so what? She’s seen with him every other minute when they’re on a case.

Around and around, circling the bleak blackness of her fears. She’s been looking for the dark to hide from the darkness inside her, and it isn’t working any more.

She’s so very tired, and the last time she was tired he’d petted and held her and wrapped her into him and all the time he’d talked her into complete submission to his story and his will – and she had needed all of it: the contact and the words and the touch – and the giving in. She hadn’t been afraid when she’d been with him – only before, and after, never during. She needs that. Him.

She needs him both places: taking everything away in private; following her around and helping her do her job better, faster, in public. She’s so very tired, and if she only asks he’ll make it all better.

She only has to ask.

The bubbles are largely gone, dissolved, or popped: dead or dying; the water is cooling. She’s been in here a long time, but though her physical exhaustion remains, her mind is much clearer.

She starts to rise from the bath, standing and reaching for the towel to wrap herself in at almost the precise second that Castle walks through the door without more than a brief knock announcing his entry. He catches Beckett just as she startles, slips and fails to recover her balance, the towel hitting the floor. The net result is that Castle ends up with an armful of stark naked Beckett and a soaked shirt and pants. The first is pleasant. The second is emphatically not.

On the other hand, it has some possibilities for making sure she takes some care of herself...

He wraps Beckett, who is looking very much more like kitten-Kat, back into the towel, stands her on her feet, balances her with a strong arm, and waits for the few seconds that it takes to be sure she isn’t falling over some more. He’d never thought her clumsy, but this illness has left her so. No talking tonight, then.

“There you are, pet. All soft and clean and bathed.” He pauses, and drops right out of any persuasion or hint of a scene: simply a straight question. “Do you want me here?”

“Yes.” She’s clear about that.

He dries her off, carefully and gently, but with the knowledge of strength and power behind his controlled touch.

As he dries her, he murmurs deeply and darkly into her ear: soft command and hypnotising dominance, keeping the – somewhat unexpected – kitten to the fore. He is quite certain that her bath is the reason for the change of mood.

“Now I’m going to make sure you’re properly dry. Just relax into it. I’ll take care of you; I’ll decide what happens next. You don’t decide anything more.” She nods and softens into his roving hands, reassured that he’ll give her what she needs. “You don’t want or need to decide and I’m not going to let you. When we’re alone” – _alone_ is undefined, and he’s carefully not saying _when we’re here_ , so that _alone_ could equally mean the two of them without companions but still in a crowded street, not just here behind a door – “I’m in charge and you’re my pet.” He strokes over her neck and the collar, playing with the edge. “Whenever you’re wearing this collar” – he reaches into his pocket – “and sometimes this leash” – and he attaches it to the collar, the thin black leather a little incongruous against the rhinestones, but soft against her pale skin – “you obey.”

His voice has sunk into a deeper growl as he rubs the towel over her waist and downward, dropping to one knee to dry her feet and calves. He might be the one who is kneeling, but it doesn’t change the dynamic: he’s still entirely dominant.

“Open,” he purrs, and when her feet shift to widen her stance dries right up to the juncture of her thighs, sliding over the silky skin. There’s an indrawn breath, and when he stands again her eyes are dark and her mouth a little parted; but he’s still having to hold her steady and it’s not because desire has left her knees weak.

“Kitten, go and get into bed,” he rasps. “Just as you are, as if I weren’t here.” She obeys without a qualm or quibble, the leash trailing down her back, and instants later he hears the rustle of the pillows and bedclothes. Castle strips his soaked clothes till he’s down to fortunately dry boxers – he’d rather be naked, but he doesn’t want to precipitate anything more than keeping her close until she’s in a state to participate – in short order, and follows.

She’s curled up around a pillow, under the comforter and smooth sheet: cream again, as it had been before; shutting out the world in that painfully defensive posture, as she had been before. He slides into her bed, and pulls her into him: an arm under her neck, the other over her waist and grasping the leash, hand between her breasts.

“Now you’re mine. No more running, no more hiding from me. When I want you, you’ll come to me. When I decide you need me, I’ll tell you and you’ll come to me. And if you need to go down into the dark, I’ll be the only dark you need. And you’ll come to me.” He pulls tighter, till she’s flush against him and can barely wriggle: trapped. He keeps talking, a dark growl in the dim light, arrogant and certain. “You’ll only come to me, because I’m the only one who can give you this.”

There’s suddenly complete relaxation against his grip.

“Yes,” comes a murmur. “You. Please?” She sounds as if sleep is the best place for her. “Keep me.” Oh, he’ll keep her. Keep her his, keep her safe, keep her secret, keep her close. His adopted name _means_ keep.

“I’ll keep you,” he acknowledges. “I’m going to start by keeping you here, with me, until you sleep. When you wake, I’ll be here.” _And when you wake, we are going to talk about how this is going to work. I’m not having another go-around of the last three weeks._ His protective instincts may be satisfied by her words, but his need for dominance, fuelled by frustration – at her actions, at his lack of words, at the whole situation – is not. He slackens his grip very slightly to let her breathing deepen as she slides swiftly into slumber, safe in his arms.

When he’s certain she’s deeply asleep, only a few moments later, he gently, so as not to waken her, disengages, slips out of the bed and starts by finding his shirt and pants and putting them in her dryer.  

That done, he wraps himself in a dry, fluffy towel which goes only part way to covering his torso but is enough to stop him getting completely chilled while the dryer works its magic, and sits on Beckett’s couch to attempt some thinking before she wakes again. He takes the opportunity to have a good look round while he’s at it. He intends to spend a lot of time here, so he might as well find out where everything is.

Before starting to think, though, he spends some few minutes simply remembering the sensations of soft, pettable Kat completely relaxed against him. She’d needed him – and said so. Start there. She’s accepted that she needs him. He’ll give her the darkness she’s seeking. He only has to work out how they do this.

First rule: it never, ever gets beyond them. ( _Wizard’s First Rule_ , he thinks, _almost anyone will believe almost anything_. And right now far too many people would like to believe firstly that they’re a couple and secondly any hint of scandalous kink. There will be far more people than that wanting to believe both, the day after Nikki One goes on sale.)

Second rule: Beckett remains badass Beckett, alpha-Detective extraordinaire, except when they are alone _and_ outside the work of the precinct. He has absolutely no desire at all – not in the beginning and not now – to be in any way in charge in anything to do with the precinct. Help – or interfere, or meddle – yes, sure; but not tell Beckett what to do. At best, suggestions and persuasion. Never, ever, orders, command, or dominance. In the end, if he messes with her job, her vocation, he’ll be out.   She won’t hesitate for an instant.   ( _And then she’ll go back to the dark and the monsters_.)

Third rule: they need some sort of a signal, or a code word. Something that one of them can use to tell – or in his kitten’s case, ask – to start the game. He won’t deny her the relief she needs, but it’ll be on his terms. Besides which, he strongly suspects that she needs someone – him – to tell her to stop. To convince her to stop. Even, on occasion, to force her to stop. That last might be difficult, bearing in mind his first two rules. Still, he’s made it work twice before.

Okay. Enough thinking. He’s a little cold, and his clothes are dry, and he has been _not_ wrapped around his Kat for quite long enough. Time to go back to the position he should have been in for the last three weeks. He extricates his clothes, shakes them out and looks dispiritedly at the remaining creases – he will certainly not be in the hunt for New York’s best-dressed man in these – and then returns to the bedroom, bed, and Kat.

She’s now curled up around herself and a pillow so tightly that she resembles an armadillo, and she’s wrapped into the covers as if she’s cold. Further investigation, as he tries to disentangle a sufficient quantity of fabric to slide in, shows that whether she is kitten, Kat or Beckett, she is a quilt thief, and worse, that having thieved the quilt she has then _no_ intention of allowing it to be retrieved. Well, Castle has no intention of freezing either. The air conditioning is keeping this apartment pleasantly temperate – _if_ he were under the bedcovers, or clothed. As he isn’t, it’s distinctly chilly, and frostbite in any extremity is undesirable.

He decides on firm action. He lifts up the entire bundle: person, bedclothes, tight-gripped pillow and all; slides into bed underneath it and then brings the whole mass down to cover him.

The unsuspected flaw in this action immediately comes to light. Castle is now warm. Oh yes. He is, in fact, scorching hot. Why did he think it had been a good idea to cover himself with stark naked kitten when he _can’t do anything about it_? And then it gets even worse, because she turns over in her sleep and drapes herself over him and she is just _perfectly_ positioned if he only moved a very little…

This is _so_ not fair.

In self-defence, Castle rearranges Beckett so that he is back to spooning into her and holding her firmly against his chest. Only the constant mental repetition of _she’s been sick. Waking her up to play would not be dominance but simply wrong_ , brings him any relief. He delicately removes the collar – that won’t start any discussion on a good note and anyway it isn’t just about that – and eventually falls asleep, still holding her as close as he can with his hand carefully settled in the valley between her small breasts.

Beckett wakes slowly, not immediately understanding why she’s unable to move much, or why she’s so cosily warm. Gradually the previous day and evening seeps, slowly and fuzzily, back to the front of her mind. She’s been grounded by her Captain till Monday; Castle had been told to take her home and then told her that they weren’t done, taken her spare key and then come back and taken care of her; she’d asked him to stay – and therefore the luxurious warmth around her and inability to move much are because he’s still here. As, she notices, are the pretty, delicate collar and a soft leather leash, on the nightstand rather than on her.

She doesn’t have to move, she doesn’t want to move, and she isn’t going to move. Not yet. She squirms back into the reassurance of his presence and stays firmly put. Everything else can wait.

It isn’t a dream, and it doesn’t need to be a dream.


	20. Dead in the water

“Well, well. What have I here?” Castle drawls interestedly. It appears that he is awake. “Seems I’ve found a Kat.” He tugs gently at her shoulder. “That’s a nice present to wake up to.” He uses the arm around her waist to turn her on to her back, and looms a little more obviously. She stretches slightly, and then a little more extensively, sliding against his hard body. “What shall I do with my Kat?” There’s a considerable degree of predatory pleasure in his voice and slow, dangerous smile. “Pet her? Stroke her? Play with her?” He pauses, letting the mood sink in. “Or simply hold her against me and wait for her to rub against me and purr?”

There’s a very small, very contented noise that Beckett realises is emanating from her own throat. It is, indeed, best described as a purr. She snuggles back into Castle’s chest and relaxes, boneless. Shortly a nicely muscular arm arrives around her midriff and tucks her in. Nothing more happens at all, although it’s extremely obvious that more would be possible. She’s still somewhat short of energy, though it’s a lot better than yesterday had been.

Castle contemplates his options. They aren’t extensive, unless his kitten starts to play, and he’s fairly certain that she’s still tired. It would be a complete non-starter if she were asleep, and unflattering if she _fell_ asleep partway through. On the other hand, there is something very satisfying about simply holding Kat and enjoying the moment. He muses happily over the fact that she has progressed from disappearing without a trace, through spooking instantly, through wanting to leave, to snuggling in and staying put. Essentially, she’s accepting that he’s there, and he’s staying. She also hasn’t _argued_.

A little time passes.

“Please will you let go for a minute?”

“If you come straight back here,” Castle murmurs. “I don’t think I want you elsewhere.” Still-Kat wriggles out of his grasp and out of bed on the instant, and Castle takes the opportunity to whisk to her kitchen to fill and switch on the kettle, then whisk back to bed. They still need to talk, and coffee is likely to smooth the discussion.

Still-Kat returns in minimal time, Castle takes the same opportunity for relief, and then pulls her back in.

“Mine,” he says possessively. “My pet.” There’s another space of silence while nothing much happens.

“I put the kettle on,” Castle says, finally. “I wanna talk about this, now you’re not half-fainting.” There’s a noise of disagreement.

“I wasn’t fainting. I was tired.”

“Now you’re not as tired, and we _are_ going to talk about this properly.” There is a marked reduction in the quantity of Kat-ness in his arms, and a marked increase in Beckett-ness. Still, they are going to talk.

Mostly-Beckett snuggles herself into a soft, silky and all-covering robe, while Castle (largely in self-defence against his own baser instincts) dresses in his creased shirt and pants. Beckett lifts an eyebrow at his dishabille.

“Not your usual well-dressed suavity there, Castle.”

“I had to dry them in your dryer. You soaked them.” The other eyebrow joins the first in heading for the ceiling. “You slipped as you got out the bath, I caught you before you hurt yourself, and I got soaked. My stylish look was therefore ruined. By you.”

Beckett isn’t very sure that she remembers it that way. Then again, she isn’t very sure that she’s remembered anything much about yesterday – daytime or evening – accurately, which given that she is trained to remember everything accurately is very disconcerting. She _does_ remember that she had asked Castle to keep her. She _doesn’t_ remember exactly what she might have meant, except that she wants him. But she _does_ remember that he’d told her that he’d be there when she needed the dark. She _does_ remember that she both wants and needs what he can give. And she _does_ remember that this can be real, if only she asks for it.

But she’s scared, still, of what she wants and needs: the memory of yesterday’s bath time musings now seeming distant, the warmth of a few moments ago dissipating; scared to ask. She pulls on her external personality, as if this were an investigation. Maybe that’s what it is: an investigation of what might be possible. She can do that. She needn’t be scared if it’s an investigation. She’s good at those. All but one of those. She shivers, and sits down rather more hurriedly than she’d intended, curling into her armchair.

Castle clearly took the opportunity to investigate her apartment, at some point. He’s gone straight to the correct cupboards and is domestically and placidly making coffee. It has much the same soothing effect on Beckett as watching a full-grown tiger playing with a toy mouse in her apartment would have: that is to say, none. She shrinks deeper into her chair and shivers again. She doesn’t need to be scared, she reminds herself.

But she is. Killers she can handle without a qualm or twitch. Her own wants, needs, desires and weaknesses – she’s been fleeing or avoiding those for years. Talking about them – even indirectly – scares her silly.

Coffee arrives on the table. Castle arranges himself on the couch, not too pleased that Beckett’s curled deep in a different chair, and indicates that she should join him. When she hesitates, he leans over, catches her wrists, and gently but inexorably pulls her out her haven and on to the couch next to him, where he can keep hold of her. He locks an arm around her shoulders and, not at all accidentally, tightens it to bring her closer. She is, he notices instantly, neither _kitten_ nor _Beckett_ , and looks at once wholly uncertain and completely terrified. He locks away the idea that he can make her all better if he simply pulls her the last few inches into his lap and tells her that he’ll take care of her, he’ll take care of everything: all she needs to do is accept it. That’s not for now. For now, scared or not they are going to _talk_.

“We need to talk,” he states, deliberately not using a name for her. “We’re going to agree the ground rules.” He smiles ferally, a quick flash of white teeth.

“Rule One: we never, ever tell anyone. It’s just us. When we’re out – we _will_ be out together – there won’t be anything that would let anyone guess. Nothing.” She’s deathly still, petrified on the couch in his arm, barely breathing.

“Rule Two: this never, ever gets in the way of your work. Whoever you are when we’re alone has nothing to do with who you are at work. I am not going to get in the way of your job.” No movement at all. No sound. Frozen.

“Rule Three: Your safe word stops everything instantly. No matter what, when or where. Always, every single time. But there will _also_ be a word that I’ll use if I decide you need me or if I want you, though it will _never_ override your safe word. You’lluse it if you want me, but I’ll decide what happens after that.” There’s a small twitch of muscle. He’d said this last night, and got away with it. Repetition won’t hurt. She needs to know this.

“And Rule Four. You never, ever, go running into the dark without me. You want the dark, you come to me. _Only_ me. I’ll keep you safe in the dark.” He’d said that last night too. Except the last sentence.

“You want me to keep you. You asked me to keep you, and to stay.” He pauses, significantly. “And I’m going to. Just like I said I would. This isn’t a dream and it isn’t anonymous. It’s not masks and a secretive club; no names, no pack drill, and never seeing each other again. This is you and me and when I make you scream you will scream _my_ name not for some faceless ghost.” He’s suddenly far more impassioned than he’d ever meant to be, or expected to be. “You’re _mine_. I found you again by accident because you ran out on me that night and never came back.”

“It was supposed to be _anonymous_. No-one would ever know.”

She stops hard. He thinks it’s to pull her rising voice back under control. She must be seriously on the edge, still, whether with stress or tiredness or both. It’s extremely disturbing to hear Beckett losing her cool. When she’s not soaked and screaming and under him, anyway… that is _not_ a helpful thought. An even less helpful thought is that she only loses her cool in this context. Never any other time. _It’s scary_ , Ryan had said. _She’s never fazed_.

“It was a _one-time_ thing that was never going to happen again. And then you showed up on a case and recognised me.” Her voice is flat. Castle doesn’t hear the second sentence. He’s snagged on the first statement.

“A _one-time_ thing? Are you telling me that was your _first_ time? Are you completely fucking insane?” _Down in the dark_? He hadn’t known the half of it. “Were you _trying_ to kill yourself?” He’s completely lost it: he knows _exactly_ what could have gone wrong, if she’d accepted the wrong sort of someone else, and the thought that it was only _luck_ that kept her safe has slipped the leash on his temper and frustration.

“I was trying not to!” she cries – and then realises what she’s let slip, wrenches herself out of his shock-slackened arms and dashes for the bedroom: her bare feet slapping on the floor the only sound in the appalled silence.

What the _fuck_? She was _trying not to kill herself_? He’d wondered almost a month ago why she might have been there on that dank January night. But then the body had dropped and then they’d fallen apart and he’d not thought about it again because why bother if there’s nothing there? Did she really mean what she’s just said the way he thinks she did? And _what is she doing now_?

When he barges through her bedroom door she’s face down in the pillows and utterly silent. He crashes to a halt, thumps down on the bed next to her and hauls her up and into him before he’s considered whether that is actually a good idea or not.

“What did you mean: _You were trying not to_?” Nothing. She’s rigid in his terrified grip. “Why were you in that club at all?” Still nothing. “What were you really doing when you said you were running, down by the Seaport?” He tips her chin up so he can see her expression. Her face is frozen, but her eyes are frantically dodging his, never meeting the blue-hot blowtorch of the terror-fuelled fury in his eyes.

“What were you really looking for?” He sees the moment she realises there’s no way out; no way past that doesn’t involve her telling him truth. Some truth. _The_ truth… well.

“Respite,” she says flatly, biting off the word. “Satisfied?” she spits.

_No. Not in the slightest. That isn’t even a hint of an explanation, Beckett._

“No,” he says baldly. “What sort of _respite_?” There’s a very nasty edge on that. “The sort that involves a pine box and a six-by-three plot of grass?”

She shrugs, as if it doesn’t matter, as if she doesn’t care.

“You are never ever doing that again. I don’t care how you feel, you are never to do it again. I won’t let you.” He shakes her. “Never.” He clings to her as if he can hold her to sanity, but when he stares at her there’s only defiance on her face. She can’t do that again. Not ever.

“Tell me what you were thinking that night.” She doesn’t answer, the trapped-animal look back on her face, hunting for an escape, or an excuse.

“Okay, I will. I’ll tell you the story.” He clamps her in, stifling her movement to evade or elude him, and turns her head so he’s watching her eyes, skittering everywhere but to him.

“You were out in the cold and the dark, alone. Just like you’re always alone, even in a crowd, even with your team. You were up on the bridge, looking down at the city lights gleaming on the water. Tired. Tired of being in charge, tired of propping up your dad, tired of all the expectations and pressure. You simply wanted it all to stop. Respite. And you looked down and saw a way out.” His hands on her tremble, but his voice is steady. “You looked down into the dark. But then you thought that there was another route into the dark. Less certain, less sure. But you took that one, instead. Why that, and not the other?” He’d been so close never to meeting her, and the risk she’d taken by walking into that club for her first foray into the scene, burns in his gut. “Why me, and not the ten who tried before that?”

“So I looked into the dark.” She borrows his words, and throws them back into his face. “So what? I stepped back. Everyone wobbles once in a way. But I _stepped back_ , just like everyone does.” _Everyone doesn’t, Beckett_. Everyone doesn’t step back, and he’s seen the detritus and the wreckage left behind. Theatre is very unforgiving. She might have stepped back, but, however unfairly, the phrase _that time_ is tolling in his head.

“You still needed something. You didn’t step back. You just found a different darkness. Why?” He wants to ask again _Why me? Why more than once?_ but he’s pushing as hard as he dares already because he has to have answers and this seems like his only chance.

“Why not.” It isn’t a question. It’s an attempt at a shut-down of the entire conversation.

“No. Answer. No evasions.” He feels her cringe into herself, and ignores the sharp pang of guilt that he’s forcing this conversation _now_ , when she’s barely recovered.

“I didn’t have to be in control,” she eventually forces out, and tries again to pull away from him. He doesn’t let go.

“There’s more.”

There’s silence.

Beckett had never wanted to talk. She really does not want to discuss this. She does not want to discuss just how close to the edge she had been. She does not want to admit in plain words that she wants this style of relationship. And she certainly does not want to admit that in the club she’d been going on instinct about who _felt_ right, because if she admits that she’ll be admitting that it was actually all about _him_ being the right person. She has absolutely no explanation for that instant, instinctive reaction at all, neither has she one for why his particular brand of sexuality fits the one she doesn’t want to admit is hers, nor for why she’s felt so much better when they’ve been together.

She makes a third, equally useless, attempt to pull away.

“Stop running, Beckett. Do I have to butter your paws to keep you in one place?” He sounds exasperated.

“What? Butter my _paws_? What are you on?” It had been an accidental, irritated statement, but it seems to have brought back Beckett, if not the kitten. Right now, Beckett is a better bet.

“It’s a way to stop pet cats running back to the old house when you move.”

“You had a pet cat?”

“Not when I was a kid.” He almost says _but I’ve got one now_ and then thinks better of it. “The theatres had cats, but Mother wouldn’t let me keep them. One of the stagehands told me about the butter trick.”

“I can’t picture you with a cat leaving hairs all over your sharp suits, Castle.” Snark has crept back.

He looks pensively back into memory, ignoring her statement. “I’d have tried it, too. But the cats ran whenever they saw me coming.”

“They obviously had good sense.” Definitely snark. She obviously thinks the conversation has moved on from his questions. Well, it hasn’t. She is not going to distract or deflect or deny. She is going to answer.

“They did not. I’d have taken care of them. Just like I’ll take care of you.” _Tiger or kitten, I’ll take care of you. You won’t._

“I don’t need” – he runs right over her.

“You do. And you asked me to. You do need it. Me. Just because you carry a gun and you take down killers every day of the week doesn’t mean you can do everything all alone. If you could, you wouldn’t have been in that club. You wouldn’t have been looking down from the bridge. You wouldn’t have been _running_ ” – the acid bite on that word shows the depth of his disbelief – “round by the Seaport.”

He draws a quick short breath. “If you didn’t need it you’d never have done it again.”

“If you’d never reappeared I’d never have done it again,” she flashes back. Her mistake becomes apparent instantly upon his immediate, infuriated reply.

“So you weren’t just looking for an anonymous night with the first one who came along. Whether you knew it or not, you were looking for something specific. You _chose_ to be with me, not anyone else. And then you didn’t just need the scene, you needed me. So _stop running_. You want this and you want it with me and I don’t get how you flip from being right into it when I tell you that you need it to running like a rabbit five minutes after it’s done. I’ve told you how it’s going to work. You just need to stop running scared of yourself and let me take care of everything.”

He runs out of words, takes one fury-and-frustration-fuelled look at her face, and blows up all his ideas about not kissing her in a single searing glance followed by crashing down on her mouth.

It’s explosive. He has one last half-thought that he shouldn’t bother trying to talk, since she responds so much better to action, and then stops thinking at all.

Beckett finds herself completely overtaken by events. She’s still trying to process his far-too-perceptive, far-too-clever dissection of her actions and hidden, private personality when Castle’s temper evidently gets the better of him. He’s invaded her mouth and his hands are gripping her tightly and she simply sinks right back into the place where all she has to do is remember her safe word.

It’s the first time she’s ever had the feeling that Castle is just as out-of-control as she is. Every other time he’s been assertive, dominant, and thoroughly in charge of the game. He’s had a plan, and executed it. This time, he’s not talking, not winding her up while maintaining his own control, not putting them into a story. This time, he’s frantic, forceful, fierce and focused, holding her tightly enough that she’s not capable of moving, taking her mouth as if she’s the last hope of salvation.

“You’re _mine_ ,” he gasps, and dives right back into her mouth, turns her and pushes her back on to her pillows and follows her down, hard hands and firm lips keeping her pinned under his raging, desperate need that she should be _his_ : never anyone else’s, simply and only and always his.

She’d _chosen_ him. And that means something important, something more than he’s understood till now. He hadn’t just been some random piece of meat and muscle, he hadn’t been a fortunate lucky break. She’d waited and selected and chosen _him_ , out of all the men who’d been there.

She’s his. He simply hadn’t understood that he was also hers.


	21. Danse macabre

He keeps kissing her, nothing more: she’s been ill and she’s still tired and she may be responsive and open but he is not an oaf. He’ll set the plays, he’ll make the decisions, he’ll be in charge – but only after she’s agreed, accepted and consented. There is a critical difference between dominance and abuse, and it lies in the free and willing consent of his partner. He’d thought that she might be less experienced – but not completely naïve. He shivers again, at the thought of where she might have ended up – that club requires consent and agreement but cop or not – would she have known what she might have been agreeing to?

But she’s his, no-one else’s, and she _chose_ him. His kisses slow from fierce possession tinged with terror into slower demands: simple almost-vanilla togetherness, and her hands are around him to keep him there. Keep him.

He rolls over and sits back up, a disappointed small meow following him.

“We haven’t finished the conversation,” he says, trying to get back on his original track of putting this on some sort of footing that doesn’t involve misunderstandings and falling apart and both of them wholly unhappy. Beckett turns over and puts her back to him. “Nuh-uh. You don’t get to ignore it. You have to talk now.” He rolls her over to face him.

“Let’s start where we began. I set out some ground rules, for both of us to agree. Did you disagree with any of them?”

There’s a pause while Beckett thinks back to the start of proceedings. Regrettably, her memory of this morning is knife-edged sharp, and almost as cutting. Ignore the later part of the – discussion. Go back to the beginning. Rules. No-one will know – but they will go out. It will never affect her work. Safe word and a start word. And no going into the dark alone.

Someone to keep her safe.

“No.” That, at least, she is okay with. He’ll never get in the way of work, so it’ll never happen during a case. Castle smiles beautifully down at her, suddenly smoothly relaxed again.

“Good,” he purrs, and lifts her up to nestle her neatly on his lap. “There. All nicely tucked in.” He encourages her to lean in and lay her head on his shoulder. “I’ll take care of you. You’ve been ill and you’re still tired and you’re definitely too thin.” His tone turns teasing. “You should put heavy cream in your coffee, and eat more doughnuts.”  

His fingers stroke over her shoulder and down her arm, landing on her wrist. “See, tiny.” He puts her hands together and demonstrates with one much larger span. “I can hold them between my finger and thumb. How do you manage to shoot at all?”

“Skill.” He grins, appreciatively.

He stays, idly stroking with no particular aim in mind except closeness and lulling Beckett into a soothed somnolence where she might be induced to say something useful. He hasn’t forgotten the lack of answers and the terrifying look inside her head. _Never again_.

After a few moments more he remembers something.

“My coffee will be cold.” He stands up, still with Beckett in his arms (she is definitely far too thin) and conveys them both back to the couch. A brief sampling discloses that the coffee is definitely cold.

“I’ll make more,” Beckett says, with a definite hint of this-is-my-house possessiveness.

“Nope,” Castle responds cheerfully. “You’ve been ill, so stay put and let me do it.” There’s a very quiet growl.   “Your choice. Be looked after with coffee or be looked after without coffee.” The growl is much louder, this time.

“With coffee,” Beckett eventually says, and then crossly, “This is totally unnecessary.”

Castle doesn’t agree with that at all. Beckett accepting that he’ll take care of her as and when required – in a number of different ways, depending on circumstances – is very much necessary. If he’d been taking care of her, she would still have been ill but she certainly wouldn’t have been this thin and she wouldn’t have tried to go back to work too early. Well. She would have tried. She just wouldn’t have succeeded.

Fresh coffee arrives in relatively short order, and Castle repatriates Beckett on to his lap and into his arms with remarkably little fuss. When she’s had enough coffee to render her human, he takes the empty mug out her grip and out the way, and tucks her in more securely. She looks a little fragile, still.

Fragile or not – and for a hotshot homicide detective with a gun she is remarkably fragile off the job – he likes her curled up into him, soft and sleepy. It fills a gap he didn’t know he had: his protective instincts twitching. He plays a little with the wisps of short hair at her neck. Even as Beckett she’s very pettable. Privately. Publicly she’s about as pettable as a prickly pear.

“Happy there, Beckett?” he purrs.

“Mmmm.”

“Good.” The purr becomes more of a growl. “Now, why don’t you explain why you were looking for the darkness. Properly.”   There’s a short silence, in which pettability is no longer discernible.

“I told you. I didn’t have to be in control.” Her lips pinch together. Tension is evident in her body.

“It’s not that. That might be a part of it but it’s not the whole.” There’s a very long silence. “Talk to me.”

Talking doesn’t seem to be happening, but he will get answers, no matter how long it takes. He can’t protect her if he doesn’t know what she’s running from.

Beckett isn’t happy about being interrogated. She could do this when it was an investigation of possibilities, and even when it became a statement of realities. But she’s scared to drag up her own issues. She can’t cope with them. How then should anyone else? The silence remains unbroken. The longer she says nothing, the thicker the tension lies; though Castle’s clasp doesn’t slacken, nor does the fingertip petting at her neck cease.

After another space of emptiness, through which Beckett declines to answer and Castle declines to fill the quiet, it all becomes too much.

“I needed to forget,” she mutters. “I couldn’t forget while I still had to be in control.” She turns her head so her face isn’t visible. It’s not a lie. It’s not exactly the whole truth. But it is _a_ truth.

Castle, not a stupid man, puts two and two together with the information from the file which he can’t admit he knows, adds the dates up, which he should have done weeks ago, patches in everything he’s heard from Ryan, Esposito and Montgomery, and very rapidly reaches some perfectly accurate conclusions. Ten year anniversary, no results, four years of not being allowed to investigate at all. Beckett wanted to forget her own failure. It matches perfectly with his own earlier deductions, and so he leaves it there. He’ll find out _why him_ later. It’s enough, for now. Time to provide comfort and stop pushing.

“Come here,” he says, more a reassuring nothing to soothe her than a request or requirement: she already is there, and he tucks her in more closely, dropping a kiss on her hair and sensing her curl in and relax. He cossets her more noticeably, until she’s completely eased and there is no hint of stress at all.

Unfortunately, eventually Beckett realises that she is not exactly dressed, and starts making sounds that average out to _I need to have a shower and sort myself out._ The words do not average out to _Why don’t you come and help?_ Castle decides to split the difference between his scratching need to protect Beckett from herself and his sheer frustration at her general inability to tell him anything without him extracting it with a scalpel, currently manifesting in a clawing desire simply to kiss her into total submission.

“I’ll wait for you,” he says, _nearly_ managing to sound cheerful rather than simply forceful. “When you’re ready, we’ll talk about the next couple of days.”

Beckett raises an eyebrow at him, but doesn’t argue. Truth to tell, she doesn’t want to. Castle’s calm assumptions that she’ll agree to his ground rules and then that she’ll accept him taking care of her maybe ought to irritate her but actually are very, very comforting. He’s _thought_ about this. Thought how it might work, (which is just as well because she has no clue how this should work) and obviously has a clear picture of how he intends to proceed – and had made sure she agreed. All of which means that she need not think about it at all, as long as she can trust him to keep her safe – from publicity and from her own demons. And she can.

“Okay.” She stays on his lap just for a moment more, then seeks out her shower and clean clothes.

When she walks back out she’s wearing a sun-dress. It’s precisely not what Castle had expected. He looks her over with considerable appreciation and an underlying question.

“It’s too hot for jeans,” she says, slightly defensively. This is very true. It is far too hot for anything other than the lightest of cotton dresses. The dress is very pretty. It shows off Beckett’s figure very nicely. It also shows off the shadowed hollows by her collarbones and the rather-too-sharp edges of her shoulders. And her usual chain with the ring.

“You are definitely too thin,” Castle says, unflatteringly. “You need to eat something.” Beckett makes a face at him.

“Way to make a girl feel good, Castle.”

“I could make you feel really good,” he purrs, and prowls up to her, tipping her face up and wrapping her in. “A proper lunch and a milkshake should do it.” She grins, a little unwillingly.

“Lay on, McDuff.”

Castle grins in return, with a heavy gloss of admiration for the accuracy of the quotation. “Remy’s. Might as well make it your favourite burgers.” There’s a tiny flick of fear in Beckett’s eyes, a hesitation. “Okay. Not Remy’s. Somewhere that isn’t near the precinct. No-one will know. No-one will guess.” He presses her against him. “No-one. Promise.” His arms tighten, then release. “Let’s go. I’m hungry.” While she was getting ready he’s managed to squash down his frustration, and looking at the effects of her illness has left him much more on the protective than the possessive side of his personal Beckett-ledger.

They end up at a burger bar some distance from the grazing range of the precinct, higher up the East Side.   Beckett sits down with some relief. She’d told Castle that getting a cab was ridiculous: she could easily walk it, but she is now regretting that choice. She’s sure he knows it, and he is very loudly not commenting on her pale, drained state.

Red meat and a milkshake restore her somewhat, though she can’t face a dessert. Enough restoration, at least, to make light, social conversation and cover up the curling nervousness that someone will see, someone will guess, somehow her secret will leak out and her life will collapse around her.

“So,” Castle says cheerily, “what shall we do for the rest of the day.” Beckett looks at him, agape.

“What?”

“Well, we’ve had lunch, and it’s a long time till dinner, so what shall we do?”

She is completely blindsided by this casually sociable, easy-going Castle; so much more like he is in the precinct. Publicly acceptable behaviour – not even, really, flirtation. He hasn’t laid a finger on her since she opened her apartment door. _No-one will guess_. No. They won’t. It could be any lunchtime on any work day with the boys buzzing round. Unless, of course, people were close enough to see the depths of Castle’s eyes, which behind the friendly blue are completely focused on her in a way that reminds Beckett somewhat uncomfortably of the total possession that he’s demonstrated when they’re in private. Um. Maybe not quite so sociable and easy-going.

She shrugs. “I don’t know.” She really doesn’t. She’s lived in Manhattan for almost all her life – Stanford and Kiev apart – but although she could detail the ten most likely locations for murder without a pause she has no idea what to do when she’s less than fully fit.

“No idea? Beckett, that’s terrible! There’s lots to do in New York.”

“Yes, there is. But all of it involves walking around.” Castle’s enthusiastic face falls.

“I hadn’t thought of that,” he droops.

It’s really quite odd, how right now he’s so very different. If she’d expected anything of this lunch, she would have expected him to be subtly dominating: making it clear that this is only the beginning of the game, a little discreet touching, a few well-chosen, murmured words. None of that is occurring. And then she remembers how he had been at home when his family were in the mix when she needed to talk through the frozen corpsicle case; how it had been at the fundraiser (and that was work, and he’d behaved exactly as he would have done in the precinct) and when she returned his mother’s necklace. In company, he’s as different from private as – as she is. Oh. He’s behaving _as if_ he’s in company.

Of course, that doesn’t preclude him from playing the game. But not today, clearly, not when she’s so uncertain and had (she winces) spooked spectacularly and fatally last time it had been suggested that they did. The only reason they’re here at all is because of Montgomery’s interference.

Castle is not nearly as relaxed or easy-going as Beckett thinks. He is merely waiting, and exerting considerable self-restraint in order not to capture her hand in his, or touch her in any way at all. He wants to. He very badly wants to, but she has her chain with its ring around her neck, so he will be civilised. At least for a while. He hasn’t missed her slight tremor, not wholly cured by lunch, nor her admission that she doesn’t want to do a lot of walking.

“We could watch a movie,” he suggests. That would have two advantages: no walking, and a quiet, dark theatre in which some limited contact would be possible: enough to slake his need to have her in his arms.

“Okay.”

“Anything you’d like to see?”

“Nope. You choose.”

He taps on his phone for a moment or two. “Transformers.”

“What?”

“Transformers. The sequel was released last week. It’ll be great fun.” Beckett is looking at him as if he’s absolutely insane. “C’mon. Let’s go.” He drops some money on the table to cover lunch and a tip, ignores Beckett’s reach for her purse, and steers her out the booth and the door.

In the cab – he’d insisted, but he hadn’t had to insist very firmly – he possesses himself of Beckett’s cool, slim fingers, and strokes his thumb smoothly and deliberately over the back of her hand. Her fingers curl around his as he continues to stroke, pressing her knuckles just a fraction every time till they bend into place and don’t leave. Baby steps, back to where they were. Back to where she should have stayed, safe with him.

Transformers has the very large advantage that it is full of loud noises and action sequences, and requires little attention to follow the plot, such as it is. It’s therefore remarkably easy to slide an arm round Beckett and pet her a little more. Twenty minutes into the film her head is falling towards his shoulder, but every time it does she realises and straightens up again.

“Just relax,” Castle murmurs. “Lean in.” He flexes his arm and pulls her closer. “Mine,” he whispers darkly into her ear. “Come here, kitten.” She startles slightly. “Curl in, and be comfortable. I’ll take care of you.” She’s just about to – he is sure – object when he changes tack. “I’ll make sure the Decepticons don’t get you.”

Beckett sits bolt upright. “I am a cop!” she says. Loudly.

“Shhhh!” someone says behind her. She lowers her voice.

“I’m the cop. I don’t need defended.”

“Sure you are.   But indulge me. It’s traditional. The whole point of coming to an action movie is for the boy to cuddle in his girl and protect her from the bad guys.”

“Can you pair either _shut up_ or go cuddle someplace else? Some of us wanna watch this movie.”

Castle takes advantage of the comment to cuddle Beckett in much more closely. He’s relying on her ingrained dislike of publicity to stop her complaining again, and sure enough it works. She’s paying more attention to the movie than he’d expected, too. Is it possible that buttoned-up Detective Beckett has a secret fondness for action movies? That has some interesting possibilities for pleasant evenings when they don’t want to play… otherwise.

It doesn’t occur to him that not only has he moved from the purely carnal through to a much deeper need to protect Beckett (he doesn’t realise that he’s moved from thinking not just in terms of his kitten but in terms of a whole Beckett, either) and is now advancing rapidly on the trappings of a normal relationship involving dinner and movies and dates and time spent together which isn’t just about the (incredible) sexual compatibility.

The movie, naturally, has a happy ending: bad guys (Decepticons) defeated, good guy (human) gets the girl. Castle sighs with satisfaction and escorts Beckett out politely, hailing a cab and instructing the driver to take them back to Broome Street.

“Home, Beckett.”

“Why are we going to yours?”

“Dinner. You need fed. I want clean clothes.” He drops his voice and manoeuvres so that he’s murmuring directly in her ear, inaudibly to anyone else. “My kitten is far too thin. She needs looked after.”

“I can deal with my own dinner.”

“Yeah, right. You’ll either not eat at all or you’ll get takeout. You need a proper meal. One that involves more food groups than noodles.”

“I like noodles.”

“And I like you when you’re not skeletal.” Beckett makes a noise that wouldn’t have disgraced an infuriated tiger, causing the cab driver to startle and nearly run the light. “Noodles have no nutrition.”

“Did you learn about alliteration in grade school?” Beckett snips. It’s Castle’s turn to make an offended noise.

“Best-selling writer here.” He smirks. “I know lots of techniques.” The phrase drips with insinuation. It’s _exactly_ how he would behave in the precinct. Which is why the next thing that happens is, just as it would be in the precinct, his ear being twisted.

The next action definitely would not occur in the precinct. Instead of variants on _Ow! Apples! Stop it_! Castle reaches up, detaches Beckett from his ear, and imprisons both of her hands in one of his. Having satisfactorily prevented her efforts at amputation, he uses his free hand to run round her shoulders and settle her in, where he can purr into her ear without either difficulty or interested listeners.

“That wasn’t nice, kitten. No clawing. If you’re going to scratch and claw like that, I’ll need to ensure that your claws are kept out the way.” His thumbs trace round her wrists, making his meaning plain, then his voice returns to its normal tones. “Dinner at mine. Pasta, chicken, salad. Ice-cream. After dinner, I’ll take you home.” And back to predatory purring. “And then we’ll discuss” – somehow she doesn’t think he means talking – “everything else.”


	22. Dead of night

Castle’s loft is largely unchanged from the last time Beckett saw it, when Montgomery had forced her into a poker game she didn’t want to play. All it lacks is the table and cards. Castle installs her on the couch.

“Sit there and rest, Beckett. I’ll go change.” He swiftly retires, quickly washes and changes, and returns with a grin.

“I’ll make us some coffee and we can await the gathering hordes.”

“I heard that, Richard.”

“You were meant to, Mother. Are you gracing us with your theatrical presence or are you on the way out?” He’s rather hoping that she’s on the way out. She usually is, and that’s what he’s counting on.

“I, darling, am on the way _in_. In style.” Martha swishes into the family room in a garment that was surely stitched by a colour-blind patchwork tailor. If Beckett had wanted a headache, all she would need to do would be to look at it for more than a moment. She looks away, quickly.   “Ah, Katherine. Has my son finally convinced you to try his cooking? I’d be careful. Some of his recipes are a little” – she clearly searches for an appropriate word – “ _individual_.”

“Mother…” Castle says, exasperatedly, “since you can’t even boil water, I don’t think you should be commenting.”

“I can,” Martha huffs. Beckett sees Castle’s own theatrical huff in the gesture, and reverses her thinking to realise that Castle learned it from Martha. She sits back to watch the bickering.

“I have cooked for us since I was twelve.”

“Nonsense, kiddo. You weren’t even at home between twelve and eighteen. You were at school. Then you were at college. Then you lived on your own – well, without me – for a while.” Castle looks caught out.

“Then you moved back in with me, and I cooked.”

“And I babysat as and when needed. I still do. Fair trade. By that time you were twenty-six. Not twelve.” Castle dissolves into a sulky mumble of discontent that he probably used on his mother aged six. Beckett doesn’t conceal a snigger. “Stop exaggerating.”

“Oh, I forgot. That’s your role.”

Martha smiles sardonically. “No, darling. My role is Grande Dame. Now, pour me a drink, please.” She looks at Beckett. “No drink, Katherine? Richard, have you no manners? Pour the poor girl a drink. She probably needs one, listening to you all day.” Martha gives Castle a very direct look that says as clearly as words would do _and where exactly were you last night?_

“Beckett is having coffee, and it would already have been made if you hadn’t been insulting my cooking. I suppose that means you’re eating out, since clearly you won’t want dinner here?”

“No. I shall be resting tonight. Dinner, I am sure, will be delicious, if you can rein in your unique creativity.” Castle makes a face where his mother can’t see it. That was absolutely not the plan.

“Dad, what’s – Oh! Detective Beckett, hi!” Alexis has come bouncing down the stairs. Beckett realises that she is in for a family dinner and briefly considers the benefits of either teleportation or instant onset flu. The second is unfortunately unachievable, since she’s just recovered from something similar. The first belongs in science fiction. Neither stops her hoping for a miracle. This is all far too close to being _shown_ _off_ to Castle’s family, who are far too interested in her dealings with Castle anyway. They’d been positively shark-like after the fundraiser, and she’d been the lonely swimmer whom the fins had circled.

“Are you staying for dinner?” Alexis chirps happily. “Great. Dad’s a really good cook.” Martha sniffs, in the background. “Just watch out for the ice-cream. If you don’t stop him you’ll have more toppings than ice-cream.”

Beckett thinks that she must be undergoing a psychiatric disconnection experience. Or suffering schizophrenia – no, maybe everyone _else_ is suffering schizophrenia. Castle being teased by his mother, or proving to be an excellent cook – basically, _domesticated_ – does absolutely nothing to clarify her view of the man. Mostly what she’s seen is the precinct playboy and the dominant male. She’s having a very hard time dealing with this new face. She remembers that she had the same disconnect weeks ago, during the corpsicle case, and earlier today. It doesn’t fit. Castle is anything but domesticated.

She curls into the corner of the couch, suddenly tired again. She’d toe her shoes off and tuck her feet under her, if it were her own apartment, but that’s not an option open to her here. The family discussion swirls around her, but she’s not listening any more. Her input is definitely not required. She slips into a soft daydream of being at home with a nice hot bath and then in her nice comfortable bed and then nice restful sleep. It all seems very appealing: much more so than having to make the effort to eat.

Castle takes an eye off his chattering family to make sure Beckett is okay and realises with some horror and more guilt that he still hasn’t even got her a coffee, let alone started dinner. She’s clearly not paying any attention at all to the discussion, and she looks as if she’s ready to fall asleep again.   This was definitely not the plan at all. He was going to feed her properly, take her home, and soothe her into contentment, one way or another, and stay. Again. At this rate he’ll be putting her in the guest room, which will not be soothing at all, for anyone, because he won’t be able to stay with her.

He rises from the couch and starts both coffee and dinner, and, once Alexis is happily chopping vegetables and the chicken is browning gently, takes a coffee-filled cup over to Beckett and puts it in easy reach.

“There, Beckett. Coffee.” Under his mother’s minatory, too-curious stare, he doesn’t pat her shoulder, or stroke her hair. Instead he wanders to the counter to finish preparing dinner. When it’s safely cooking, he wanders back to the couch, and contents himself with settling down where he can unobtrusively watch Beckett and spar with his mother. He certainly does _not_ want his mother interfering.   That would be fatal.

By the time dinner is ready Castle is suffering a severe attack of matricidal thoughts which, by the time it’s done, are cut with a severe desire to take Beckett through to his bedroom and put her to bed without further ado. She ate like a sparrow, and didn’t even want ice-cream.

“I’m going to take Beckett home,” he announces.

“I’ll be fine,” Beckett says. Three sets of identical blue eyes look at her with three expressions of identical disbelief.

“Katherine, never turn down an offer of an escort. It upsets men’s delicate egos.” Castle splutters at Martha’s words. “Well, maybe not yours, darling. Yours wouldn’t be upset by a bomb going off.” He splutters some more.

“Let Dad take you home,” Alexis puts in. “He’ll only follow you to make sure you get there okay if you don’t.” She sighs parentally. “He’s a bit overprotective, you know.”

Beckett manages a reasonable effort at raising an eyebrow to produce her normal, cynical expression.

“I have a gun, you all realise?”

“Do you?” asks Castle, a little unkindly. “Where?”

Ah. That is a good, if unwelcome, point. She doesn’t. She tosses her head, just a little.

“You don’t. So I’m taking you home.”

“You don’t have to.”

“No. But despite Mother’s best efforts to convince you otherwise” – Martha splutters in her turn – “I do have some manners. Come on, I’ll see you home.”

Beckett can feel Martha’s beady eye watching every tiny detail of Castle’s behaviour towards her. She could deal with that, if it weren’t that she can also feel Alexis providing the same level of supervision. Castle, clearly used to his every move being scrutinised, blandly ignores it and allows Beckett to hoist herself out of her seat without more than the tiniest twitch of his fingers indicating that he’d rather like to help.

His forbearance abruptly ceases the minute the elevator doors close behind them and there is no more observation. Beckett finds herself with an arm around her with sufficient intent to show that Castle, at least, thinks that she needs supported.

“I’m fine,” she states. She’s not lying. She is fine. She’s just tired.

“Sure. That’s why you’re asleep on your feet.”

“I’m not. Wide awake. Eyes open – though if I have to look at your smirk for much longer I might change that.”

“Beckett, Beckett. After I fed you a gourmet dinner, too. Not that you ate much.”

“I’m no gourmand, Castle. That would have fed a full house at the Met.”

“Gourmet, Beckett. Gourmet.”

“I know the difference.” Castle grins, toothily.

“So hot.” He changes tack. “You should have eaten more.” He runs his hand over her ribs and up her back and round so his thumb scrapes her collarbones. “See?”

“Stop fussing. You’re clucking like a mother hen.”

“You think? I’m not a hen. More of a” –

“Peacock.”

“That wasn’t quite what I was going to say. Some of the same letters, though.”

“Shut up.”

Castle’s grin doesn’t shift an iota. Nor does his arm, comfortably nestling her into his wide frame. There is a certain firm quality to it which indicates that he has no intention of shifting his grasp, and indeed he doesn’t until the necessity of getting into a cab overtakes him. Even then, he swiftly reasserts his clasp, and follows up by encouraging Beckett’s head into his shoulder. The reason becomes obvious.

“We could be going home after a night out,” he murmurs, and slides a warm hand on to her knee. “You, pretty in a dress, curled into me. If you weren’t so tired, there would have been so many more possibilities.” He leaves that hanging, for a moment. Serious physical seduction is off the menu. Words, however, offer him so many options. They’d begun with his words. His fingers move softly on her leg, low enough to be civilised, high enough to make a point. He’s not going to start in a taxi, though. They’ll be at Beckett’s apartment soon enough. He contents himself with keeping her close until the cab pulls up, and then keeping a lightweight arm around her until they’re inside.

“I’m home,” Beckett points out, somewhat hampered by her jaw-splitting yawn in the middle of her sentence. “Thank you for escorting me.” There’s a small edge of snippiness on that. The general effect is _but I’d have been fine on my own_.

“My pleasure,” Castle smirks. “As is this,” and he sweeps her up into his arms and plumps them both down on the couch in a considerably more pleasant arrangement than was available either at his loft or in the cab. “Now, where were we?” He adopts a considering expression. “Oh yes. We were going to discuss everything else.” He pauses. “Kitten.”

“Nothing to discuss. I’m tired.” Castle refrains from a comment along the lines of _when you’ve finished stating the blindingly obvious_ … and tucks her in against him a little more securely. “You don’t need to stay.”

“I want to. You’re so delightfully cuddly when you’re tired. Perfectly, prettily, pettable.” The light, teasing tone drops into smooth, deep command. “And all mine.” And because he really cannot resist his soft, tired pettable Kat and he’s been well-behaved all day (almost) he simply tips up her chin and runs his hand round into her hair and kisses her.

It’s a gentle kiss. At least, it starts that way. Castle teases delicately over Beckett’s full lips, hinting at all the reasons she should open up and let him in. He doesn’t demand, or search out, or deepen, or press in. Until the moment his kitten sighs softly and parts for him, when he takes swift, definitive possession: tasting and teasing and tantalising, sure of his welcome.

Beckett allows herself to drift into the seductive, satisfying haze of Castle’s mouth on hers and his arms around her, thoroughly in control, keeping her safe, holding her close. She curls in closer, letting Castle impose his will on the situation, happy to be swept along.   The reassuring, peaceful tenor of the day: casual lunch, enjoyably silly movie, dinner at which she only had to watch the cabaret; has left her – yes, tired, true, but soothed. When Castle’s hand drops to her hip and turns her so she’s pressed firmly into his chest, that’s fine. When the same hand strokes the length of her leg from hip to knee, stuttering slightly early on the way, and then returns on a low growl of desire, that’s just fine too.

When he picks her up again – he’s really far too keen on picking her up – and takes her into the bedroom, she doesn’t protest. When he gently unclips her chain with her mother’s ring from her neck and puts it on the nightstand, she doesn’t argue. When he carefully and slowly lowers the zip of her dress and slides it from her shoulders, revealing the hard protrusions of vertebrae under the cream satin skin, traces downward with his fingers and follows with his tongue, she doesn’t complain. When the plain white bra falls loose around her ribs, she hums contentedly, and obediently stands for both to fall to the floor, leaving her in tiny plain white panties. Castle tugs her back down, strangely gentle still, not commanding, watches as she drops face-first into the plump pillows.

“Bedtime, kitten.” He runs a hand over her back, down over her slim rear, back up again. She curves bonelessly into his hand, lax and sleepy. “Unless you were hoping for something else?” She hums, neither one answer nor another.   He strokes again, feels her curving again, looking, he thinks, for comfort and soothing, not the screaming arousal that he could bring her. “You’re tired.” He rolls back the bedclothes and rolls her in.

“ ‘S been a nice day,” she mumbles. Castle looks down at her, smiling a little ruefully. He’d hoped… But he’ll still be there in the morning, and tomorrow is another day. He knows what she needs, better, it seems, than she does, from bath last night to easy day today: no pressure, no overt dominance. No sex, however much he could convince her to want it. He’ll just have to suffer – and suffering he is. He tucks her in, wraps her close into him until he’s sure she’s asleep, and then resorts to a book, elsewhere; and when that fails some self-help during his own preparations for bed. In the morning, he thinks with amusement, she’ll resemble a raccoon. She hadn’t had a lot of make-up on, but there had certainly been mascara and eyeliner, which is presently smudging fetchingly around her eyes.

He’s far more surprised when, some time later when he’s slipped back into her bed, not much eased by any of his actions during the interval, she immediately snuggles into him before he’s even tried to bring her there. But if she wants cradled, he can manage that. Oh yes.

* * *

Morning is signalled by Beckett extricating herself from his very reluctant arms, followed by a very Beckett-like noise of annoyance as, presumably, she notices what she looks like. Correcting the situation takes a while, during which Castle dozes off again. He wakes up abruptly to the noise of drawers and doors opening, and rapidly realises that Beckett is getting dressed. This is not what he wants. Even if she is holding another pretty sundress, it is not the plan.

“Come back to bed,” he drawls, making it clear that he’s appreciating the view. His voice makes it clear that he’s not expecting disagreement. There is, however, hesitation. “Come back, kitten.” It seems to break the spell. She slinks back, in a way he hasn’t seen for weeks. “That’s better,” he rumbles, when she comes into range for her wrist to be caught and the rest of her to follow it. By the time she’s draped over him, the bra is already gone.

“That’s much nicer,” Castle points out, arranging Beckett to his satisfaction. “Just where I want you.” He moves against her, and she squirms in return. “Mmmm,” he hums, flips them and pins her beneath him, pressing into her. “Now what shall I do with my pet?” He reaches over and finds the collar, still in exactly the same place as he had left it, laces it around her neck, and pauses with it still unlocked. “Still _Siamese_?”

His kitten looks up through wide dark eyes and bats her eyelashes mischievously. “Yes,” she breathes, and nibbles her lip in a very _come-on_ fashion. He clicks the collar shut, and watches as the final trace of uncertain, unhappy Beckett disappears and his sexy, submissive kitten re-emerges. She is, he notes, already damp. _Playtime_.

“You wore a dress yesterday.” He leans up on his elbow, off to the side, one arm under her neck and his hand on her shoulder. “I liked it.” He smiles, pleasantly predatory. “I’ll forgive that you forgot the rules, because it was daytime, and I promised no-one would ever know.” The smile is now all predation. “Tonight, though, after dinner, and before I take you home, you’ll go to the bathroom, take your panties off, and put them in your purse. You won’t need them.” He dips and kisses her hard, all conqueror and no quarter. “You won’t want them.”

Another kiss, no question but that she’ll let him in to take and plunder just as he pleases – and enjoy each minute of his ownership. He’s got till Sunday night, when she will turn back into Detective Beckett, alpha hard-ass, in time for Monday morning and being allowed back to the precinct. By then, he might have sated his need to possess, protect and dominate, and be himself restored to some peace.

“And if I don’t?” The question rides on a naughty, seductive tone. Castle raises his eyebrows.

“Depends how I feel. Maybe you’ll have to wait. Maybe you won’t. Hmmm. Keep you on the edge or keep you screaming? Too little, or too much? Either way, I’ll get what I want.” Her eyes are wholly dark, now, dilated and only seeing him; she’s only hearing his words. “You should be naked, right now. Take them off, kitten. Remember the rules?”

“Naked,” she murmurs, slides seductively against him, and in one astonishingly flexible movement is suddenly just so.

It gets a little confused after that. Castle remembers sliding a hand insinuatingly down over her stomach to tease, but he doesn’t remember anything much after finding her soaked and her dirty moan when he stroked through her until he finds himself with her hands pinned beside her head and so deep inside her he has no idea where he stops and she begins, taking her as if she’s the last woman on earth with his mouth ravaging hers: not domination, just a little roughness that the noises she’s making indicate she likes and then she cries out and clenches around him and shatters and brings him over with her.

When he recovers brain function, he finds that he’s automatically rolled to leave his kitten unsquashed, but he hasn’t let go of her and she’s sprawled over him. Sliding out, he realises with considerable relief that he did use protection, though he doesn’t recall how, or when, he donned it. He hasn’t lost control like that since… well, since ever. His arms tighten without any volition at all. She’s never going to leave him. Never. She’s _his_ kitten and he is going to keep her safe with him.

“Mine.”

“Yours,” she breathes, and his world turns inside out again.

“I’ll keep you,” he vows, the weight of his words lying heavy on the air. “I’ll keep you safe in the dark.”


	23. For whom the bell tolls

There’s a contented silence.  Castle idly strokes Beckett’s back, neck to dimple, only in the one direction, as if he were smoothing a velvet dress.

“Where was I,” he muses.  He’d rather lost track of the scene.  About five seconds after she’d got naked, in fact.  He’d just… had to have her, never mind the story, the control, the games.  She wasn’t objecting, though.  Not at all.  Nor is he.  “Ah yes.  We were talking about tonight.”  He rolls her over so he can see her face, sated and sleepy.  “I’ll bring you home, won’t I?”  She nods.  “When we get here, I’ll put your collar on, and then what will you do?”

“What you want.”

“What’s that?  Say it, kitten.  You have to answer properly.”

Here, in the scene, playing the game, answers are easier.  Not easy, never easy, but less difficult.

“Take the dress off.”

Castle smiles lazily.  “Good girl.  That’s right.  Then what?”  She wriggles, a little seductive, a little embarrassed.  “Come back to you?”

“Yes, and?”

“Kneel.”

He’s instantly aroused again, at the thought.  Kitten-Kat takes the opportunity to wriggle enticingly against him, slipping slim hands into his hair and raising her face for a kiss.  He’s happy to give it.

“For now, though, I’m going to make you feel really, really good.  You’re mine, and I’m going to show you just what that means.  This time, kitten, you’re going to scream for _me_.  Not some faceless lover.  _Me._ ” 

As he’s talking, his hand has moved down to mould her breast, roll the hard nipple; repeat on the other side; come back and repeat again, palming and shaping, cupping each small soft mound in big, firm hands; stroking until she’s moaning and pushing into him and already pleading for more.

“More, kitten?  You want some more?”

She has just enough brain left to catch the reference.  “Please sir, I want some more,” she gasps, and smirks for only an instant.

“Oh, I’ll give you more.  You know I will.  I’ll give you what you need.”  He almost-casually takes her hands, currently linked around his neck, stretches them above her head and holds them there, kisses her again, deep and hard and sure, and then starts down her jaw and neck, over the jumping pulse, nips at the point of her clavicle just hard enough to notice, not quite hard enough to bruise or mark.

He needs to put a heavy arm over her stomach to hold her still for his mouth when he brings it down over her breasts: as he licks, sucks and then bites very carefully she’s already frantic, trying to free her hands and failing.  He stops for a moment, midnight eyes fiercely intent.  “You’re so excited, kitten.    Held down, at my mercy, and you love it.  If I touched you, I’d find you soaked.  If I play with you a little more, you’ll be begging for real, not just quoting Dickens.  And you know the best thing?  It’s all up to me.  You can’t do anything about it and you don’t want to.”  She bucks against his arm as he lowers his mouth back to her nipple, tugs and rolls and she does beg: _please please it’s too much don’t stop ohhhh_ and some way, somehow she’s already gone.

Castle, it seems, has not finished.  He has let go of her wrists, but that’s only because even at his size he can’t have one hand above her head and keep his own head investigating downwards towards – presently – her navel.  He bites once over the hard jut of her hipbone, soothes the sting with his tongue, and then runs a finger back up to her mouth, leaning on an elbow, above her.  “Open, pet,” he murmurs.  “Show me what you can do with your wicked, pretty mouth.  Later, you’ll show me more.  Just the way you ought to be, when we’re here, alone.  Naked and kneeling and wet, mouth a little open, ready.”  His gaze is hot and feral as she makes love to his fingers with her lips and tongue, soft suction and delicate flicks. 

Simply thinking about what she’ll do later, how she’ll look, how he’ll decorate her with intricate items and silver connections, show her again how good they are together and then, after, how he’ll pet her and cosset her and keep her safe and comforted, leaves him painfully aroused and ready all over again.  But he will wait.  First, he’ll demonstrate that he can coax her body to shattering as often as he chooses, as often as she can stand.

“You’re not to come till I say you may, pet.  I’ll tell you what you can have.”  She mews, and happily lets go of any thought that she might stay in any sort of control. “Now.  Hands above your head.”  She complies.  “Listen to me; feel how I touch you.  Nothing else matters except here and now.  You’re my pet, here to be stroked and touched and taken care of, however I think best.”  His fingers flow over her flank, back and forth, up and down.  She twists, trying to move his hand and failing.

“Just wait.  You’ll get your turn later.  I’ll want you to do a lot of things, later.”  The undertone to his voice drips with the smudged shades of forbidden sexuality and dark delight: the atmosphere of the club right here around them.  “First, I’m going to do a lot of things to you.”  His sleepy, leonine smile curls her toes and kisses between her legs.  “You can make as much noise as you like, as long as you don’t come till I tell you.” 

The smile acquires an edge.  “Remember when we met?  I said that _my_ pet would be trained.  I think you need reminded of that.  You seem to have forgotten.”  The lazy, edgy smile strengthens, and his hands slide over her skin, slipping closer to the taut cream flatness of her stomach, teasing the sensitive areas of her thigh, just above the knee.  She opens for him, already wetter. 

“If you’re disobedient” – she shivers, remembering the first time he’d said that, that first hot, anonymous night, turned her wet and wanton and willing with his words – “then I’ll deal with that.”  The expression on his face is now dangerously intent, dark and focused.  “Later, I’ll have all the items I need.  You’ll be held however I choose, if you’re naughty.  Punished, however I deem appropriate.  If you’re disobedient now, you’ll have all day to think about how I might discipline you later.”  The words roll off his tongue, thick and hot and dark, coating her.  She moves under his gaze, her hands still above her head.

“You remember the last time?  You were disobedient and you were punished.”  She whimpers and shakes her head, _please no_.  (But it had felt so good and she had enjoyed every shackled second that the chain had rubbed against her.)  “Remember what I told you?  I can keep you on the edge for hours, kneeling in front of me.”  He trails his fingers higher up her leg, pressing her wider, watching her eyes grow hazy and the delicate flush of desire bloom on her body.  She’s beginning to writhe against his hand, pushing against him, looking for friction and failing to find it.

“Open for me,” he commands.  “You don’t touch yourself anywhere.  Nowhere.”  He stretches her a little wider.  “I’ll do all the touching, for now.”  The implication makes her quiver.  He dances soft fingers closer, and watches her face, her hands clenching on the pillow.  “How do you feel, knowing you have to do as I tell you?”

She squirms under his gaze.  He’s done this every time, asked her questions and made her answer: made her admit the sensations, the emotions, her submission; built the filthy fantasy around her and drowned her under it.

“How do you feel?  Tell me.”

“Don’t make me…” drags out of her, a long hot breath.

“You have to.  You have to admit it.  Confess.”  There’s no mercy in his face, simply hard male satisfaction and the dark, sure knowledge that she will obey.

“I need…” he waits upon her words… “I need it.”

“It?  What do you need?”

“What you do.  I want it.”

“Needy,” he purrs.  “I like that.  You need what I can give you.  Only me.  Tell me, kitten,” and the purr becomes a growl, “who gives you what you need?”  His fingers inch closer to the crease of her thigh, barely touching.

“You do.  Just you.”  It’s mewled out.  He holds her still.  It’s his game, always his game to set the rules, never any need for her to take a decision or be in charge or have to think.  She needs respite from her alpha life and he will give her it.

“You need me, don’t you?”

“Yes.  Just you.”

“How do you feel when you’re all stretched out and open and obedient?”

“Excited.”  And admitting that makes her more excited.

“You’re wet for me, aren’t you?  I haven’t really touched you and you’re soaked.  Hot and slick and wet and desperate.  How long can you hold out, kitten?  You have to keep the rules, or you’ll be punished.”  His fingers are so close, and not yet near enough, and he’s still talking.  “This is why you won’t be wearing panties on the way home tonight.  You’d spoil them.” 

“Please.”

“Please?  That’s good, kitten.  Please is good. It means you’re remembering that I control you. Nothing that I don’t allow.”  His voice slips into a different note, the softness of silk on the sharp edge of a steel sword.  “You have a toy.”  He waits, and watches the blush – how can she blush for a simple toy like that? – spread over her face.  “Did I say you could please yourself?”

“No-o.”

“I’ll give my pet toys.”  He strokes briefly and wickedly.  “After all, it’s always nice to have new games to play.”  She whimpers, and blushes more deeply.  Castle taps a little pattern out, high on her leg, smiling lazily.  “I’ll find a use for your toy.”  The smile drops.  “But right now you don’t need it.  Right now you’re _my_ pet, my toy, and I’m going to play with you.  Don’t move your hands.  Don’t come.  I won’t tell you to be quiet.  That’ll be later.”  He sounds dangerous.  “You’ll have to be quiet, later.  But now, you’re going to scream.”

He draws a firm stroke straight through her centre without further ado and she bucks and cries out.  His hand cups her and he bends to take her breasts again, sucking and tugging, soft flicks and sharp stinging nips that he soothes immediately, leaving her moaning and over-sensitised.  She’s shattered once already, just from his attention to her breasts, and he intends to make her shatter all over again.  He’ll play her body to crescendo, and let her wait and wonder for the rest of the day.  By the time he brings her home, she’ll be frantic.  She knows what he can do to, or for, or with her – and he’ll be sure to remind her.  He can feel her writhing under his hands and mouth, not able to move too far with his bulk pinning her, her shoulders flexing as she struggles to keep her hands above her head.  She’s so close…

She’s so close, and it’s too difficult, and she’s sinking and does she really care because she wants to let go but she wants to be obedient as it pleases him but she wants to be disobedient because it feels so good… and he stops and rises and takes her mouth and it’s so unexpected that her hands curve around his neck to hold him there and knot in his hair and then he stops altogether.

“Naughty kitten,” he says, and detaches her.  “Your hands were to stay here.”  He puts them back on the pillow.  “Moving them was disobedient.”  The dark, wolfish expression tells her that there will be consequences even for that small transgression.  She doesn’t stop the disappointed little noise.

He stays motionless for a moment, as she comes down a little from the clenching tension in her body, the liquid heat in her core.  And then he starts again, and the pull on her breast is tugging muscles deep within her, forcing her into the arch and curve of desire.  She can feel the fluttering begin and the heat build and his hand still only cups her but she’s so wet that he could just slip and slide and glide and she can’t help the twisting, frantic movement of her body to bring the heel of his hand to press where she has to have it.  She’s not aware that she’s crying his name, a long string of _Castle please Castle I can’t Castle_ and she can’t stop, won’t stop and falls.

It takes a space of time before she comes back to reality, to find Castle looking down at her with a cool expression and flaring hot eyes, blazing with the extent of his desire.  Truth in the eyes, an instant of cop sense tells her, and the twinge of fright at the coldness disappears as if it had never been. 

“Disobedient again, kitten.  I’m very disappointed in you.  I thought you had learned better than that.  Still, maybe you’ll be able to control yourself this time.”  His hand wanders from her waist southwards, through the soft neat curls, into the slick folds.  She’s instantly alight again.  “Repeated disobedience makes me think you aren’t trying to behave yourself.  I’d hate to think you weren’t trying.  I’d have to change today’s plan: maybe take you for a walk in that pretty dress of yours.  On the way, we might talk about control.”  Sex drips slowly from each word.  “We’ll talk about everything I can do to you: how you feel when my thumb rubs over you” – it presses over the taut bud of nerve endings and she gasps – “how tight you are when I slide just one finger into you and find that single spot that makes you scream” – he does precisely that, and she screams just like he said she would – “how much you’ll beg to have me inside you, whimper and moan and promise to obey if only I’ll let you have what you need.”

She whimpers, incapable of more.

“I know what you need.  A time to put down your control and submit to mine.  A time where you won’t be in charge and won’t be allowed to be in charge.  You can have it, any time you ask for it.”  His fingers prove his control, dancing her along the edge, never quite allowing her to drop.  “As long as you ask nicely.  _Please_ is good.  _Please sir_ is better.  I’ll know you need me if you say _gold_ anywhere in a sentence, though, if you’re in public.  If you do, I’ll decide what happens next.  If I say _gold_ , then you’ll be here, waiting for me.  After that, I’ll take care of everything.  Nothing for you to decide.”

His fingers slide again, wholly in control, orchestrating her reactions and taking her up, watching her fight to stay on the edge, not to plunge over again: fight to obey when everything he’s doing will force her disobedience.  He hadn’t missed her reaction to the thought of being edged again, though, and he pushes her further up, adds another finger and then a third, fills her and works her with hard, talented hands on and in her: each place she might need or want it: she’s begging him not to do this but it’s all part of the game: there’s pure lust in her face and there’s not a hint of her safe word or even uncertainty.  She’ll be safe in his hands.  And on that note he slides and curls his fingers and need do no more to bring her over the cliff screaming his name as she falls again.

He’d use his mouth on her, as she will, much later, on him, but he needs to feel her tight around him, be inside her and over her and simply _take_ her: the domination only of his much larger body and the act of sex itself.  Almost plain vanilla: no less enjoyable than any other game they’ll play.  He’s no longer sure how much of this is d/s play and how much is coming from something more and deeper.  He’s no longer sure whether his bent to domination is simply a bent to protectiveness, more than slightly kinked.  He _is_ sure that sliding slowly into her open, willing body, giving his Kat everything she needs, is the way he wants the rest of his life to be, and when she breaks once more, he can too.

After, he simply wants to hold her close, tucked in against him in a way she would never be outside some quiet, private space, soft and sleepy and cuddlesome.  He realises with mild surprise that he needs this gentle aftermath as much as she does; needs the comfort that her lax body brings when it’s curled up next to him, or in his arms; needs the difference between her commanding precinct, public self and the surrender of private Kat.  He needs her to need him, and in both their needs, together they’ll find satisfaction.

“I need a shower,” his kitten murmurs, making no effort at all to move away from him except a luxuriously boneless stretch, rubbing against his side.

“You do?  Hmmm.  So do I.  Maybe I should wash you.” 

Kat peeps up through her long lashes at him.

“Maybe you should.  Please?”

Being washed, it transpires, is a slow, seductive process in which Beckett is allowed to play very little part except for turning and extending as she is told to.  By the end of it she’s perfectly clean but not perfectly dry.  Castle has, quite deliberately, left her body humming with arousal and need.  She whimpers softly.

“Is something wrong, pet?”  He’s smiling in that possessive, predatory fashion again, and Beckett knows that this is only the beginning of a long, frustrating day.

“Please?” she asks hopefully, and makes to kneel.  He pulls her up gently. 

“Uh-uh.  We’re going out.  Let’s go for a nice walk in the park, and afterwards we’ll get lunch and talk about what comes next.”

Beckett makes a disappointed noise.  “I don’t…”  She stops, at the querying look on his face.

“Who decides?  You’ve already been naughty this morning.  Now you’ll just have to wait, and wonder.”  He steers her back to the bedroom, and her closet.  “Find a pretty dress, kitten.  It’s going to be hot, today.”


	24. The knell of parting day

He searches through her drawers, and lets out a noise of satisfaction. “Come here.” He’s holding up a relatively pretty set of underwear, which she hasn’t worn for some time. She used to, before she hid herself away. She reaches out for them, but Castle shakes his head at her.

“No, you don’t. Come here, and I’ll dress you.”

Being dressed is another exercise in slow touching and seduction without culmination. Beckett is right back quivering on the edge before he’s done.

“It’s going to be a lovely day,” Castle says, running his gaze over her, up and down, very slowly and thoroughly. “Let’s go out.” But before she moves, he’s caught her and kissed her, slowly and deeply. “I might not do that in public,” he says, “but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to. You’re all mine, and I’m going to make sure you know it.” And having demonstrated in one smooth, possessive kiss that in here she is indeed all his, he takes her hand, tugs her to the outer door and smiles like a five year old on his way to the playground: the easy, happy, public man’s persona already settling on his broad shoulders.

To the outside world, it probably seems like that easy-going man is the only Castle strolling in the sunshine in Central Park with Beckett. Beckett, however, is not convinced. She might be fully dressed, but she hasn’t forgotten one single blazing word that Castle’s poured dangerously into her ears, and right now she’s remembering every word he’d said about taking her for a walk. Anticipation is coiled tightly in her core, feeding the arousal he’d stoked in her and left unsatisfied, and though he isn’t touching her at all, not so much as a fingertip stroke that would look like an accidental brush of hands to any passer-by, she is aware of his proximity with every movement. Her normal swinging stride has melted into a smooth sway: the dampness that has lurked between her legs since waking creating its own feedback loop.

She knows that he might start to talk at any time, senses that his game plan is to keep her stoked high all day, force her to control herself and then start the game after dinner, but right now she’s content to wander in peaceful companionship and try to come down from the edge she’s been placed upon.

They continue to meander aimlessly in the summer heat, and with every moment in which Castle remains quiet Beckett’s anticipatory tension rises. She’s in ballet flats, and it adds to the sense that she has no control over the direction of this day: geographically, temporally, or sexually. It’s strangely restful to have no purpose, no focus; not to be hastening; not to be running scenarios and theories in her head before she’s even reached the corpse; not to need to observe and concentrate; not to need to command and order and organise and impel or compel action and reaction. All she has to do is wander idly under the summer sun and let another person lead.

It slips vaguely into her mind that certain forms of dancing would have provided that same feeling of respite.

“Do you dance?” she asks, out of nowhere. Castle glances sharply at her, transparently astonished.

“Of course,” he says. “Theatres. Every so often Mother would want a practice partner and, well, there I was. You _know_ I can dance. We danced at that fundraiser.” Oh yes, so they had. “Why d’you want to know, Beckett?” She watches as he works it out. He looms much closer and smiles. “Clever kitten,” he purrs darkly. “We could go dancing.” His eyes are already darker. “Waltzes, where I can hold you close without a single eyebrow raised; where you can wear your collar without anyone knowing it’s more than a necklace. I’d lead, and you’d follow me, and no-one would ever suspect a thing except” – he hesitates fractionally – “that we were enjoying a pleasant, friendly evening.” He’d almost said – _that we were in a relationship_. He’s not yet sure enough of his ground to call this by that name. Soon, though. Very soon.

Beckett draws her lower lip through her teeth and sends a flirtatious look upwards. Castle hisses and forcibly stops his hand movement towards her.

“Are you thinking about dancing?” he drawls dangerously softly. “About being caught into me, discreetly pressed against me, following my lead? Are you thinking about what I might murmur to you while we danced?”

Beckett quite deliberately nibbles her lip again and turns flirtatious into sultry. He’s made her sizzle for all of this saunter so far, and she doesn’t see any harm in being a little mischievous. It’s not disobedience if she’s following his lead, and she has full confidence that nothing will happen in public. He had promised, and she trusts him to keep that promise. On the other hand, a little feline mischief should ensure that they’re not in public for too long.

She doesn’t consciously notice that her level of comfort with the whole situation and with Castle has increased to the point where, in a very limited way, she’s prepared to push the game on her own account, rather than simply responding to Castle starting it.

He hisses again, and takes the opportunity presented by having to avoid a pair of jogging would-be athletes to step right into Beckett and run his hand over her hip, through the loose skirt of the sundress, then stays close for an extra second.

“I know what you’re trying. It won’t work.” Beckett presses into his hand on her hip, and casts him another loaded look. Her eyes are a little darker and a lot more mischievously sexy. He leans down and in. “Much more of this and I won’t lay a finger on you.” She nibbles her lip yet again, and soothes it gently with her own tongue.

“Much more what, Castle?”

“You’re trying to provoke me. You’re trying to take charge. Not happening, kitten.” He discreetly strokes her hip again. “We’re going to stay on our walk. But later on, this is going to be added to the tally of your transgressions. You’re a long way down that road.” He looks moderately satisfied with the prospect. “This evening is going to be… interesting.” The last word carries some considerable emphasis. Beckett doesn’t mean to mew, but that doesn’t stop her. “Like that thought, kitten? You’re going to have a long time to think about it.”

He smiles happily, dropping the dark sensuality. “I want an ice-cream. Want one too?”

“Yes, please.”

Ice creams in cones duly appear. Beckett peeks up through her eyelashes at Castle, wishes she’d remembered to bring sunglasses as she squints into the light, and addresses herself to her ice-cream as Castle does the same.

By the time he’s finished eating his cone she’s struggling to breathe evenly. The way he’s looking at her and the flexing of his tongue and lips are as easy to read as one of his books. She doesn’t say a word, but he answers anyway.

“You’ll have to wait and see. Maybe I will, and maybe I won’t.” As he crosses to drop the paper in the trashcan, his fingers float over her lower back again, brush softly and unnoticeably over the swell of her ass. It’s the second of the tiny, delicate, not-quite-erotic touches that she had expected yesterday: just enough to remind her of the morning. On his way back he whispers across her ear, inaudible two feet away, “Later, you’ll be mine, any way I choose. You’ll be hot and wet and begging.”

Castle knows precisely what he’s doing, and is walking an extremely thin line between winding up Kat – definitely Kat – and winding himself up to the point where he takes them both home. He summons control – of himself – and fights off his intense desire simply to have her within the crook of his arm as they walk, to be able to touch her and keep her slightly, lightly aware of the placement of his body. Later, she’ll be wholly, intensely aware of the placement of her own: arranged at his direction and for his pleasure – which will be hers, too. His control doesn’t extend to stopping himself leaning in again.

“When I take you home tonight you’ll be naked under that dress, and you’ll know that I know it. Think about how that’s going to make you feel.”

She can’t stop thinking about how it will make her feel, now he’s said that. The thought that she’ll be exposed to him is at once wholly arousing, slightly uncomfortable, and entirely filthy, and the combination leaves her damp and pulsating as they walk. It’s a new level up from being alone in a cab. A few yards more go by.

“I might have my hand on your knee.”

How can he look like a child enjoying himself and smother her in that bedroom tone and those wicked, dirty words? She’s drowning in the sex-soaked syrup that he’s ladling out. She can sense his hand on her knee, even if it isn’t there.

“I might stretch my fingers upward, over your thigh, inward.” He pauses, and she tries to gather thought and breath. “I might not. But you’d want me to. You want me to, now.”

She doesn’t do this. She doesn’t walk through the Park in a pretty dress and pretty shoes and pretty underwear listening to filthily arousing talk from the man who’ll do everything he’s promising and more; she doesn’t have to stop herself whimpering under her breath because she’s damp and hot and all the small muscles are fluttering around emptiness; she doesn’t give up control of her actions and reactions to another.

And yet here she is, and has, and does. And doing it feels so good, and her stress is absent, and she doesn’t have to be, or do, or think anything at all. She can just let go of everything and live in and enjoy each moment. Odd, how his provision of the dark has brought her out into the light.

After not much longer, Castle insists that it’s lunchtime and that Beckett – his mouth says _Beckett_ but his eyes say _kitten_ – needs to stop walking around for a while and simply sit. His eyes say _on my knee_ , or possibly _in my arms_. He points out that he knows a good, quiet place for lunch just a block or two away, and Beckett can’t find any reason to disagree.

“How’re you feeling?” he asks, when they’re installed in a corner of a small Italian restaurant with soft drinks and grissini, orders given. Beckett shrugs.

“Fine,” she says automatically. Castle raises his brows.

“Really? Yesterday you were too tired to walk at all.” She bristles, and rapidly acquires a covering of Beckett-ness.

“And today I’m fine.”

Castle drops the point. His kitten is more than a little paler, a good deal less smooth, than she had been, and while he’s perfectly well aware that he could simply take her home and cosset her for the rest of the day, he’d rather be able to stick with his original plan of taking her to his loft and feeding her dinner, having spent the majority of the day keeping her heated up. A nice, slow, civilised lunch seems the best way to achieve both.

Beckett falls upon her lunch as might an impeccably mannered but starving wolf. It occurs to Castle that she is – as he had noticed – far too thin, and that he should have realised that she hasn’t eaten properly, if at all, since she had been ill. That’s at least four days that he knows about, and she’d run through the kidnap case on caffeine and adrenaline before that. She’s certainly making up for lost time now.

Ten minutes or so after the plates were put down Beckett’s lasagne is completely absent. She looks better already. Castle finishes his pasta more slowly, and puts his cutlery tidily together. Beckett is regarding her plate as if she might try eating it too.

“Dessert, Beckett?”

“Please.” She licks her lips, deliberately.

Castle’s eyes flash briefly, but with a quick flicked glance a server and menus appear. While she’s buried in the delights of the dessert section, Castle slides a little closer to the table and uses the cover of the checked tablecloth to conceal his hand landing on her knee. Presently, it’s on top of the fabric of her dress. He draws a delicate little circle, notes the soft intake of breath, and draws a pattern that moves the fabric from below to above his hand. Then he stops, waits a beat, stretches his fingers a little and then puts both his hands back on the table, smiling with satisfaction at the delicate line along her cheekbones.

“No-one could see,” he murmurs, at the panicked flicker in her eyes. “I made sure.” Not that her flusterment prevents her ordering dessert and polishing it off in double-quick time. With every bite and swallow her colour and the smooth flow of her movement returns. Castle files for future reference that Beckett, Kate, Kat or kitten sometimes needs reminded to eat, and adds it quietly to the list of ways she needs someone. Him. Not _someone_.

“What shall we do now?” he muses. “Back to the park? Sightseeing? Staten Island Ferry?”

“Coffee.” She’s suddenly very Beckett, sparky and definite. “I need coffee.”

Castle holds her gaze and lets that remind her of everything he’s thinking and everything that he’s said and done with her this morning. The spark doesn’t falter, instead it flickers between the need to take charge and the soft mischief of her earlier looks. He has some difficulty in not kissing her right there. He regrets his promise deeply, but he can’t break it: if he spooks her now there’s no way she’ll ever come back to him. She has to trust him, and more: has to know she can always, _always_ trust him; with heart and soul and body and mind.

With all of her life.

He’ll be as much a part of Team Beckett as Esposito and Ryan are, and more; and in turn she’ll be an integral part of Team Castle. He wishes more intensively that he hadn’t promised that no-one would know, because right now his loft is looking ever more appealing as a place to spend the afternoon. Specifically, his bedroom, and more specifically, his bed. But his family will be in and out – school is finished, so Alexis may or may not be around depending on her plans with friends, his mother is entirely randomly present or absent – so that simply doesn’t work. _Stick to the plan. Keep her wound up as you promised and wait to play this evening. It’s what both of you need._

Need? Oh. Yes. Need. He needs her for his words to come back, and more, he needs her right there next to him; and she needs to lay down her load.

While he’s been pondering Beckett has returned to Beckett-ness, summoned the server and ordered coffee for both of them. He wonders if that’s a tactic to allow herself to rest, or simply her normal addiction. Whichever, she’s ordered exactly his favourite; and it occurs to him that while he observes her, she probably absorbs his foibles without even realising it, the trained observational osmosis of a class-act Detective. He drinks his coffee in peaceful companionship, lost in contemplation.

“Time to go,” he says, eventually.

“Okay.” She stands to leave.

“Don’t we need the check? I don’t want arrested for skipping without paying.”

“All done.” She turns to the door.

“What?”

“All done.” She looks slightly surprised at his question. “I paid. Let’s go.”

“You paid?”

“Yeah. I have my own checking account, you know. I can balance it and all,” she adds sarcastically. She appears to notice his astonished stare. “C’mon. Surely someone’s bought you lunch before?”

Well, actually… not since he can remember. Certainly none of his girlfriends or ex-wives.  

“Not often,” he compromises.

“Oh. Well.” She looks uncertain.

“I like it,” he says. He even manages to make it convincing. _He_ should buy _her_ lunch: feed her, take care of her. He can’t, in fact, decide if he likes this feeling or not. He likes, he decides, that she doesn’t expect him to pay. But he doesn’t like it, because he wants to give her things, meet her needs before she’s even really realised she needs whatever it is. He likes that she’s thought to give him something. It’s just… his feet take him out the door before he’s finished catching the idea… oh.

Oh, that is so not a good way of thinking. Oh no. He was thinking that because he’s wrapped her in sensuality and in that respect held her under his complete control – she should be letting him take care of her all the time, in every way. Oh, that is a mistake. Detective Kate Beckett, all-around hard-ass, does _not_ need smothered. And whatever she may be like – and simply _like_ – in a private setting, her normal approach to life is to hit it head-on and expect it to bend to her will. She is not going to appreciate cotton-wool swaddling, nor will she appreciate him trying to play knight in shining armour. Needing to lean on him, needing him to give her the respite she has to have, is absolutely not the same as needing babied. Which she emphatically does not need and will cut him to pieces for trying, which bloodied shreds will only see her back as she walks away. _Fuck_ , this is complicated. How does he walk the line between keeping her safe in the dark and letting her be all the rest of the time?

“You coming, Castle?”

He’s not sure if he’s coming or going, right now, as he takes two long strides to catch up. Her words are familiar, her tone is not. She’s still in some soft, unstructured, definitely-not-Beckett headspace. Which is just fine, really. As he reaches her he slides soft fingers over her back to remind her he’s there, noting her push back into his touch, and continuing his campaign by flicking swiftly across her hip.

They pass the afternoon, by mutual agreement as the outside temperature and humidity have risen to truly unpleasant, in the air-conditioned spaces of the Metropolitan Museum of Art: being a compromise between Castle’s argument for the dinosaurs of the Natural History Museum and Beckett’s preference for MoMA. School being out, it’s not as quiet as Castle had hoped, and as the day wears on Beckett needs to sit down more often.

“You’re tired,” he says eventually, a while after he’d first thought it.

“I’m fine,” she half-snaps.

“Really? You look like a – very pretty – ghost and you’ve been sitting more than walking for the last half-hour. Come on. Let’s go back to mine. You can stay for dinner and then I’ll take you home.” He smiles silkily. “We didn’t finish our discussion this morning.” He sees everything he needs to know in the answering flash in her eyes and flush on her cheek. Still, tired or aroused, she doesn’t take his hand when she rises. He’d known she wouldn’t.

It doesn’t stop him taking her hand discreetly in the cab, running his thumb over the palm of her hand and, stuck in appallingly slow traffic, settling their linked hands carefully on her knee and letting his fingers slip and slide.

By the time the cab ride is over, she’s a little more flushed: he’s murmured quietly in her ear all the way and none of it was innocent; his fingers hadn’t moved a single fraction past discretion but she’d wanted them to, then not wanted them to, all the way back. His words were _wicked_ and she wants nothing more than to go home and begin. Unfortunately, she isn’t being given that option.

“Here we are,” Castle says softly. “Are you ready?” She flashes him a hopeful look. “For dinner.”


	25. Into that good night

His mother is, thankfully, missing.  As planned.  Alexis is not missing, but Castle prefers dinner with his daughter present to dinner without her, regardless of his plans for the rest of the night.  She’s growing up too fast, and spending time with her father is no longer her favourite thing. 

“So, Dad, is that okay?”

“Huh?”

“I _said_ , Paige wants me to come for a sleepover tonight.” 

Beckett looks at the expression on Castle’s face with some amusement.  It’s a very peculiar mixture of _but this is your home_ and _now I don’t need to worry about going out_.

“Who else is going to be there?”

“Her parents.”

Castle looks at his daughter, childish mischief dancing in his eyes.

“So no drink, no boys, no rock-n-roll?”

“ _Dad_!  No!”

“How am I supposed to be a good, responsible father if you never do anything wrong?” 

Beckett snickers.  Alexis looks world-wearily at her father.

“Dad, after hearing Grams’ stories I’ve been put off irresponsibility for life.”  Castle frowns darkly.

“Grams’ stories?  Not mine?”

“Grams’ stories are wildly inappropriate.  You toned yours down.”

“How’d you know that?”

“Grams’ stories.”

By this time Beckett is stifling hysterical laughter.  Castle is thoroughly discomposed. 

“Grams is not supposed to tell you stories about me,” he huffs.  “Have some respect.”

“A minute ago you were encouraging me to be irresponsible.  How can I be irresponsible if I don’t have an example to follow?”

“She has a point,” Beckett grins.  “Which do you want, Castle?  A responsible daughter because she knows all the trouble you got into – wanna share, Alexis? – or an irresponsible daughter getting into all the trouble you got into?”

Castle looks pained, clearly remembering some of his earlier exploits, and then horrified, as the import of Beckett’s words dawns on him.

“Don’t gang up on me,” he grumbles.  “It’s not fair.”

“But it’s so easy,” Beckett murmurs, and as soon as Alexis is looking in a different direction gets a look that says _you just wait_.  She returns a peep through swept lashes, and a nibble of her lip.  Castle’s look escalates to _you’re in trouble now_.  That had rather been her plan.  As Alexis turns round she provides a last seductive lick of her lips and leaves Castle with no time to retaliate.

“Yes, you may go to Paige’s.  Yes, you may sleep over there.  But if there are drugs, boys, liquor, or something makes you uncomfortable and her parents are not there you _will_ call me.”  Beckett raises an unseen eyebrow.  Castle clearly takes parenting seriously, despite his earlier joking around.  It’s about the only thing she’s seen him take seriously.  Except her forced admissions the other day.

“Yes, Dad.  I will.”  And Alexis clearly expected that, from her complete lack of annoyance and complete attitude of _you say that every time and of course I will_ at the suggestion.  “See you tomorrow.”  She bounces off upstairs to collect, Beckett presumes, the necessary accoutrements for a pyjama party and sleepover. 

It sounds considerably more staid than the parties Beckett remembers in her teenage years.  There had certainly been drink at those.  Frequently, there had certainly not been effective parents, which is why the parties had not been at her place.  Once there had been no effective parents, she hadn’t wanted to party.  She suddenly feels tired and uncertain, more so than she has done in the last two days: Alexis’s evident happiness with and trust in her father to take care of her reminding her that she doesn’t have that.  Exactly the reverse, in fact: her father trusts in her strength, but all the ease with him that they’ve so carefully rebuilt doesn’t change the fact that she can’t lean on him.  Her own strength, or no strength: that’s what she’s got to lean on, occasional moments of respite provided by Castle notwithstanding.  It doesn’t mean that those moments aren’t uncomfortably successful at providing her with a break.  It simply means that she shouldn’t come to depend on them being possible.

She shrugs the emotion away.  She can have a break tonight.  Just relax, give in to the moment, forget everything.  Especially, forget that she hasn’t really got any parents at all.  She’ll be better for a break, she’ll be better for down time.  All she has to do is let it happen and stop listening to her remaining unhappiness.

But the hint of sadness is still lurking in the corners of her eyes when Castle turns to her.

“Coffee, Beckett?”  He won’t betray any hint that Alexis might detect.  Beckett deserves full respect, and Alexis has a disturbing tendency to be overprotective of her father in the face of any woman she suspects of having designs on him.  That’s emphatically not required.

“Yes, please.”  This _please_ does not come with subversively seductive lip-licking.  She makes to clear the table, but Castle forestalls her.

“Leave that.  You go and sit down, and let me sort everything out.  Guests don’t do the washing up in this house.  I’ll be done before the coffee’s ready.”  Beckett retires to the couch, curling up quietly in a corner and waiting. 

Coffee, Castle thinks, will give Alexis time to depart – this was a remarkably well-timed evening out – and give him time to warm up Beckett to being his Kat.  She seems, in the last few minutes of dinner, to have retreated into herself a little way.  This is not a good sign.  He tidies efficiently, makes the coffee equally efficiently, and joins Beckett, preserving a discreet distance lest Alexis interrupt a more intense discussion than she should be privy to.

He’s asking all sorts of procedural questions to fill in time, which Beckett is answering without any great enthusiasm, when Alexis finally trips down the stairs, gives him a hug and departs without further ado.

“Come here,” he entices softly.  Beckett doesn’t move.  Beckett, in fact, doesn’t appear to have registered that he’s spoken.  She’s lost in her own head.  He slips across the couch, lifts her without needing to strain, and takes her into his arms.  She’s perfectly positioned for many things, but right now she’s perfectly positioned to have her head gently encouraged to rest on his shoulder, her small breasts pressed against his chest, and her arm caught between his ribs and his own arm around her.  Start with petting, and take away the sadness deep in her eyes.

His fingers slip delicately over her back, the other hand smoothing over the short ends of her hair, curling around the back of her neck, finding little knots of tension in her muscles that hadn’t, he thinks, been there earlier and then pressing strong fingertips into them, massaging them away.  Gradually her breathing begins to change to a soft, contented hum and she curves into his hands, softening and relaxing into him.  He continues to pet and cosset, happy to keep her close in for now.   They have all evening, and he needn’t hurry anything: as long as his kitten is curled on his lap and he’s petting her then matters can develop as they will.

All the knots and tension have slipped away in the time in which Castle’s been stroking her neck and back, Beckett finds, and her brief, unwarranted sadness has gone too.  Now, she’s comfortably cosy and contented, and as Castle’s talented fingers continue to trickle over her back she curves more noticeably into the pressure, her arm coming up to curl round him and let her run fingers through his hair.  She nuzzles into his neck, absorbing the aroma of faint traces of cologne and big, warm male, and simply stays still for a moment, tucked in.  Warm is rapidly turning into willing, and right now she wants Castle, and the respite he can, and will, provide.

She kisses his neck.

Response is instant.  Castle’s arms tighten, he re-angles her, and his mouth hits hers to take swift and unambiguous possession.  His own choice to exercise restraint for the day has left him closer to flashpoint than he had wanted, and now that he has a clear signal and privacy to start the game again, he’s not minded to waste it.  He takes a brief instant of sanity to note that Kat-as-kitten is now sufficiently present and comfortable to start the game, rather than backing away until he insists she needs him and then consenting, and then gives himself up to the much more primitive and pleasurable pastime of owning his pet’s mouth until she starts to make tiny sexy mewls, wanting more than he’s giving her.

He lifts off, looking at her dazed eyes and fuller lips.

“Time to go home, kitten.”  He smiles very slowly.  “Remember what I said?”

“Ye-es.”

“Better get ready, then.”

Obediently, she slides off his knee and retires for a moment or two.  Castle takes the chance to collect some useful items and a change of clothes, remembers that they’d left the collar at her apartment, and is ready in short order.  His Kat re-emerges, slightly flushed.  Her walk across the room has changed, too, becoming more of a slink.  The flush owes far more to arousal than to any embarrassment, he thinks, and summons all his own control not simply to take her into his bedroom, shut the door, and begin.

But that won’t work.  She’s not comfortable here, it’s not her home and it’s not, to her mind, private.  His family live here, and that’s enough to trip her wiring, inhibit her, as if there weren’t enough inhibitions around her already of which to be careful.  So stick to the game plan, take her to hers, and play there.  She’s come so far towards him already, he shouldn’t mess it up now.  Somewhere in these last two days, she’s flipped her mental switch to accept that this is possible, and enjoyable, and she can have it.  As long as it’s just them. 

As long as it’s just him.

“Let’s go,” he says, and instantly belies himself by pulling her against him so that he is rigid and flush with her; kissing her hard and grinding hips into her so she can’t mistake or miss his rampant desire; his firm hand lifting her leg to curl around his waist and open her for him and then slipping up, under the dress; over soft smooth skin and taut, fine-cut muscle; finding her naked and hot and so very, very wet.  All for him, only for him: his pet, his kitten, his Kat and his Beckett.  Searching, sure fingers swoop and glide and tease; until she rolls desperately and mews and pleads: _please, more, please sir_.  He stops, brings fingers to her lips.

“Lick them clean,” he murmurs.   “Taste yourself on them.  Taste what I do to you,” and he holds her tightly to him with one strong arm so she can’t elude the proof of his need for her.  “Just a little reminder that you’re mine.  Now we’ll go.”

It’s close to dark, out.  Beckett is ushered into a cab which seems too small for Castle’s looming bulk and surrounding aura.  He winds an arm around her slim shoulders, a small exertion of pressure ensuring she tucks herself into him, saying nothing, waiting.  Tension curls about them, the invisible cloud of anticipation tainting the air.

When the cab moves off into the traffic and the surrounding noise of engines masks from the driver any whispered speech, Castle’s large hand arrives on Beckett’s knee, concealed by the falling night and the puddles of darkening shadow between each streetlight.  His voice is gravelled, murmuring deep and slow, trickling drugging, addictive words into her ears.

“I could touch you, here in the dark: reach up and stroke you till you couldn’t decide if you wanted me to stop or not.  No-one would know; no-one would see.  You know that I know that under that pretty, tasteful dress you’re open to me: no fabric preventing me doing whatever I choose to.  I could play with you, make you come right here and now, or hold you on the edge all the way.”  She squirms in his arm, falling under the spell of his words without resistance.  “How do you feel, knowing you’ll let me do anything I want to, while you have to stay quiet?  You’ll be desperate for me to do more.  You already want more, don’t you?  But you can’t make any noise: not the tiniest mew or whimper.  You have to be completely quiet.”

His large fingers delicately shift the fabric so that skin meets skin: their tips trailing on the silky inner flesh just above her knee, circling lightly, sensually.  She doesn’t make a sound, already, though, biting on her lip; her legs part by an inch.

“Is that an invitation?” he growls, the fur edged syllables stroking far higher than his hand.  “I think it might be.”  His hand rises a scant amount, nowhere near indiscretion: his arm round her shoulders drops a fraction for those fingers to draw matching circles on her collarbone.  She tries to slip down a little, to force his hand upward, but it fails.  “No you don’t.  It’s not your choice.”

Castle continues to draw tiny, erotic patterns barely north of Beckett’s knee, teasing her with occasional short forays a little higher, never anywhere close to where he knows she wants him to be.  She’s chewing her lip continuously, eyes half-closed and her hands twisted together, fingers restless.

“Give me your hands,” he murmurs, and indicates the hand to which she should provide hers by tapping gently on her clavicle.   When they come into reach he wraps both elegant hands into his single large span and strokes tiny patterns on them with his thumb, lacing his fingers around her wrists.  Just a little hint of what might come.

The end of the ride arrives with Castle’s hand barely higher on Beckett’s leg than when he began, but nonetheless her breathing is ragged-edged and her pupils huge and black.  Castle pays the driver without so much as a peep of protest from Beckett and steers her to her door with a light, swift touch on her back.  Light and swift turns to firm and prolonged in the elevator, accompanied by fast, sure kisses that don’t last and don’t satisfy.

“Now we’re alone, kitten,” he purrs as the door shuts behind them, predatory pleasure prowling through his tones.  “When you’re fully better, we’ll go dancing.  I’d have taken you tonight, but…”  He looks down at her, smaller in flat shoes, and more fragile from the illness: still a strange transparency in her skin, and resolves on a gentler, more controlled form of domination than he’d thought he might before dinner.  “… you don’t deserve it.  You misbehaved.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, each word sultry, slick with disingenuity.  She’s not sorry at all.

“You came without permission.  You didn’t tell me about your little toy.  And you tried to top from the bottom and take charge.”  Sex and heat flare in her eyes.  “You’ve been disobedient.  If you won’t learn to control yourself, you’ll need to take the consequences.”  She shivers sensually, the words and deep, commanding tones spreading through her flesh and bones, prickling down her nerves.  She had been wet.  Now she’s soaked.  There’s no stress, no need to command, or to act, or to prove herself.  Here and now, she can’t fail: she only needs to react.  This game has no losers.

“We’re going to go back to the beginning, and remind you of the rules.  Stand by the couch and wait, just as you are.”  He rapidly retrieves the collar from the bedroom.  “I’ve always liked cats.  A cat would be my favourite pet, and now I’ve got one.”  He links the collar around her neck, smoothing it over her skin.  “There.  I own you, kitten.  Don’t I?”

She nods.  “Yes, sir.”

“You want to be owned, don’t you?”  She nods again, her mouth dry, touches tongue to lips.  “You want to be my pet; mine to play with and to keep.  You want to be my kitten, soft and pettable on my lap, or feline in my bed.  Don’t you?”  Another nod.  “You just want to be mine.  To surrender and submit.  Don’t you?  Just the thought of what I can do for you and to you leaves you hot and wet and wanting.   Doesn’t it?”  She mewls.  He’s barely touched her and she’s wholly aware of every inch of her body.  She curves towards him, but he doesn’t give her anything more.

“You need one other thing, though.  I don’t want you to run away.”  He’s still standing close, looming over her and exuding physical dominance and sexuality.  He reaches down and plucks the long chain from the bag, clipping it neatly into her collar and letting it fall through his hand.  “Pets are leashed.”  He pauses, runs a hot gaze up and down, making it clear that he remembers that she’s naked under the dress.  “And then they’re trained.  Back to the rules, kitten.  No noise, no coming, no touching, unless I explicitly allow it or tell you to.”  He sits down on the couch, perfectly relaxed, perfectly in command; the leash now held lightly in his hand.

“Such a pretty, demure dress,” he notes conversationally.  “No-one would ever expect you to be naked beneath it: open for me to explore.  No-one would ever spot that you’re soaked and hot and ready for me: desperate for me to touch you and relieve that tension burning down your nerves.  You want me to touch you, don’t you?  Stroke you till you scream and come.  You’re so excited, it would only take a moment.”  His tone remains lightly casual.  “But you’re not going to.  You’re going to wait.” 

He tugs gently on the chain.  “Come here.”  She moves forward, and his hands come up to rest on her waist, thumbs lying over her pelvic bone, hinting at the possibilities.  Firm pressure from his hands brings her nearer still, standing at his knee: need written in the darkness of her eyes and the colour on her cheekbones; anticipation in the nibbling of her lip.  “Tell me how you would be, if I hadn’t told you to stay as you were?”

“Kneeling…” she husks, and shudders at the vision.

“That’s right.  Clothed or naked as I decide.  Good girl.”  He smiles lazily.  “So do it.”

She folds elegantly to her knees, the dress pooling around her, and looks up through her lashes.  There’s nothing innocent about her provocative gaze, nor the way she licks her lips to leave them wetly glistening.


	26. Death is nothing at all

Castle looks at his kitten kneeling in front of him and resists the temptation to pull her into his lap and turn her into a writhing, moaning mess that way: to use strong, clever fingers to take her to the edge and then keep her there for as long as he can stand before he takes her to the bedroom and simply possesses her. He’s made her promises, all this long, frustrating day, and he will keep them.

“You forgot something,” he says. “What did I tell you I wanted you to do, this morning, when we got here?”

Realisation dawns in her face, and she reaches behind her, finding the zipper of the dress and slipping it down; the singing of the metal echoing through the apartment, dropping the straps from her shoulders and letting the dress fall to her waist. The bra follows in one sinuous slither that slides it from her body and flutters the dress down to the floor.

“That’s better. Just how I like you.” He leans slowly a little forward, traces fingers over her full, damp lips, brings them back to the rosebud centre and pushes them inward, into the wet heat. She flicks her tongue across them, then twines it more erotically.

“You want to use that naughty mouth? Not that way. Not yet.” He withdraws his fingers slowly, curves them around her face, encourages her to kneel up from sitting on her heels, and kisses her deeply. “I’ll decide what your mouth gets.” He kisses her again, firmly, trailing one hand down over her shoulder, slowly tracing her collarbones, down between her breasts. She tries to turn into his hand, but his other hand is at the base of her skull and holding her for his mouth and she gives in to the demand without a qualm.

It’s all so easy. She wants this and she wants him and she needs him to give her what she needs.

A peculiar kind of peace, she thinks, when she’s naked and wet and later she’ll be begging for release and screaming his name and wholly, utterly his, any way he wants, any way he tells her. It’s her route to peace, though, a fucked-up peace for her fucked-up personality. A deeper peace than any other she might find, this side of the fall from the bridge.

His hand falls across her stomach, and she arches into it, not allowed to speak, to make a noise, to plead for him to give her what she wants. Further down, so near to where she needs the touch, winding her higher with the anticipation of the pleasure he can bring. She’d never known that her body could feel like this, not until one dark heated forbidden night six months earlier: had never regarded sex with any previous lover as more than a pleasant diversion that would leave her merely contented.

“When we were walking earlier,” he stops and grins, suddenly mischievous, “which means, kitten, that we’re walking out together,” – the mischief drops away – “I knew, every step of the way, that you were waiting for me to take you to a private place and touch you. We’ll walk out a lot, just like that. When we go dancing, though, it’ll all be quite different. We’ll both look good. You’ll wear a dress, of course. The crimson silk one would be good, or the cherry one.” It’s not a suggestion. “Your necklace. You might wear the bracelets. Only I’ll know that you’re wearing them because I own you, and you’re happy to be owned.” Her eyes, dappled with shades of green and brown and flecked with desire, meet his.

“The evening starts with dinner. I might hold your hand, discreetly; stroke it. You’ll know that if I slipped my hand under the table I could stroke your leg; slide my fingers over the smooth skin that the short side of that dress reveals; move a little higher, under the silk. You’d know where I was going, and you wouldn’t stop me. You’ll never try to stop me, because you want what I can give you.” His voice is deep and arrogantly certain of his own power over her. If anyone had used that tone to her outside this scene, she’d have chopped them off at the neck, not the knees. But here and now, it flows down her nerves and pools between her legs and makes her squirm against his hand. He lifts it from her stomach and sets it high on her thigh, fingertips curving inward to the satin smoothness. “Just like this.” His fingertips move slowly, aligned with his words. “You’d open for me.” She does. “I’d give you a little more, move a little higher, take you up. Just before anyone could realise, I’d run my hand across you” – his fingers move swiftly – “flicker into you” – he slides one partway home, and she bites her lip not to make a sound over her fast, shallow breathing – “and leave you needy.” He withdraws his hand completely. “Just like this.”

He looks her over, hot eyes and cool, commanding smile. “I wouldn’t kiss you. Not in public. I wouldn’t stroke your hand where anyone might see. Not until you’re ready.” He brings both hands gently round her face, all the force he could deploy restrained, held back. “But here, we’re not in public, and I’ll kiss you whenever I please.” He leans in, and she sits back on her heels, an arm dropping around her back to hold her, the other hand moving back to knot in her hair and tilt her face upward. There’s only an inch between their lips. Castle lifts her back up to meet his mouth and take hers completely, possessive and passionate and predatory, never letting her out of his grip as he raises her to settle her on to his lap. His tongue explores, demands, and finally conquers, swallowing little almost-noises, feeling her arch in and rub against him, as boneless and as feline as he’d wanted.

“And then we’d finish our dinner, sip our wine, and drink our coffee. And you’d know and I’d know that you were totally naked under the dress; and you’d know and I’d know that it’s because I told you to be; and you’d know and I’d know that when we dance there will be nothing but the thin, blood-red silk between my hand and your skin. You’d know, and I’d know, that when we went home the necklace and bracelet would become collar and cuffs, ready to hold you in whatever position I chose; just like my arms will hold you in position when we dance.”

He puts her back on her knees on the floor, and brings his hands back to her face to keep her looking straight at him. “When we’re waltzing, I’ll lead. I’ll be in the driver’s seat.” She smiles back, complete contentment shading the lust in her face and eyes. “You’ll be wrapped against me, my hand on your waist, yours on my shoulder, leaning into me, your head tucked in, trusting me to steer you safely. Tight against me, and we’ll both know that it’s only the precursor, we’ll both know how much I want you, we’ll both know how much you want me; we’ll both know that after the evening we’ll come back here and you’ll be mine.”

It almost sounds romantic, in their messed-up version of romance. It would certainly seem so to the outside world. Just an ordinary couple, having dinner and dancing like they’re in love.

“But before we can go waltzing, I need to know that you’re properly trained. It wouldn’t do for you to become over-excited.” He reaches back into the bag, brings out the bracelet-cuffs. “Hands,” he orders, and when she stretches them to him puts the cuffs on her wrists, brings out the short length of chain and imprisons her hands behind her back, close together. “Now you can’t touch yourself,” he points out. “No matter how much you want to.” His lazy smile turns feral. “You will want to. Oh yes.” And back to the lazy, sleepy, sexy smile, totally confident.

The restraint sends liquid pooling to her core, heat surging through her. When Castle reaches for her again, slowly stroking her face, leashed power in his fingers moving oh-so-slowly downward over her neck and then, this time as he hadn’t the last, sliding over the top of her breasts, her nipples proud before he’s gone any nearer them, her skin prickling with need: with her hands bound she can’t reach to try to move his hands to where she wants them. He plays for a while, stroking and moulding, soft pressure and gentle rolling, occasional pinches: every movement and touch controlled.

“Remember, kitten, no noise and no coming. I know what this does for you. You showed me, this morning.” She had, and even just his hands on her are leaving her helpless as he plays her body. If he uses his mouth she’ll be lost no matter how hard she tries to obey. She tries to stay quiet, but that doesn’t stop her moving, twisting under his talented, wicked touch and pushing into him for more: her mouth silent and her body begging. Sensation is flooding through her.

He stops, only just before it’s too much, waits while she drops back just a little, hands unmoving around her ribs, kisses her softly in reward. “Good girl. That’s better.” Then he begins again. Much sooner, she’s back on the edge, balanced there; much sooner, she’s trying frantically to stay quiet. The heat at her core scalds her, and thinking is long gone except to keep herself from orgasm. When he pulls her higher and puts his mouth to her breasts: licks and rolls her with his tongue, and then sucks to send her inner muscles fluttering around nothing, she abandons silence and pleads: _no more, please_. He stops, gives her a moment to come down a little.

“You’re not being quiet. Naughty kitten. Strike one. Try again.” And he carries on. At the first muffled moan he stops. “Two strikes,” he says, ominously, and waits a little. This time the pause barely helps at all. “Do you like being on the edge, kitten?” She shakes her head. “I don’t think you’re telling me the truth,” he replies conversationally. “You seem to like this a lot.” He traces one fingertip swiftly and lightly between her legs. “You definitely like it. You’re soaked, kitten. Hot and wet and desperate for me to let you come.”

She looks at him, eyes huge and mouth a little open, a little glistening, and he paints her lip with her own dampness. She flicks his fingertip with her tongue, wholly provocative and so into this she can barely believe it of herself, and makes Castle suck in breath and sway towards her, momentarily out of control himself.

“Is there something you want?” He slips the same finger back into the slick heat, leaves it there, unmoving, and she squirms and tries – and fails – to bring it somewhere a little more useful. “I know what you would like,” he rasps, still not fully returned to his previous calm. “You want your mouth filled.” He slides three fingers into her mouth, and she licks lewdly over them, holding his gaze with the promise that she’ll do anything he wants. “And I want to fill your mouth.” His fingers slide gently in and out, a forerunner. “The only problem is” – he pauses – “that you’re two strikes down and you don’t deserve a treat.” She bites back a mew before it can escape.   “So we’re going to play a game.”

A game? That’s… not, actually, a surprise. There have always been games, and they’ve always been rigged. Her eyes flit away, and jerk back. “A chance for you to wipe the slate clean.” She’s sure there’s a catch. She’s never won, once he’s begun a game. The smooth links of the chain – or leash – trailing down her back tap softly as she wriggles. “The loser is whoever comes first.” He grins. “That could be misunderstood. Whoever _orgasms_ first.” There might be less sexuality in a full-on orgy than is dripping from his words. And, slowly, light dawns. Ah. That’s the catch. She’s so wound up already that she’s practically there, and if her teeth weren’t in her lip she’d be whimpering and begging.

“If I win” – his expression is wolfish – “I do up that pretty chain and do whatever takes my fancy.” The comment hits straight between her legs and leaves her right back on the edge, squirming at the memory of how it had felt. “If you win, we wipe out all your disobedience and you choose what we do afterwards.” It’s very clear from his face that he doesn’t expect her to win. She’s fairly clear that the expression on hers is that she doesn’t expect to win either. She’s not even sure she wants to.

“But we should make it a fair competition.” He reaches round and undoes her hands. “There. No rules, no restrictions. You don’t have to be quiet.”

She’s not at all sure she likes or wants this change. The whole _point_ of this is that she doesn’t have to make any choices or decisions. She had thought he liked that too. Why’s he suddenly changing the game on her? What if he wants something different, and she can’t do this right? What if it simply leads to another stale, flat encounter, neither of them satisfied; to another failure? She’s starting to back right off her over-sensitised edge, and right out of the scene.

Castle picks up on the sudden tension and drop in sexual temperature almost at once. Something’s spooked her, and while she’s not exactly Beckett, she’s certainly not fully his kitten and she’s an awful lot closer to the scared uncertainty of a day or two earlier when he’d made her talk about everything. He takes the line of least resistance and most pleasure and lifts her up into his lap without waiting for her to say anything. They’d still be here in the same position come Christmas-tide if he waited for that.

He cuddles her in and strokes her soothingly and doesn’t do anything else. Yet. He is thoroughly uncomfortable, and he had had several ideas for solving his discomfort. He had rather expected her to take up the – he had thought – fairly obvious invitation to use her mouth on him, while he indulged himself in playing with her. He was perfectly certain she wouldn’t win the game, right up till thirty seconds ago. She was far too wound up. He had intended to send her shattering and screaming over the edge, and himself follow, then snuggle her into him, and then play some very enjoyable games with her in just the way that they’ve both liked.

And now she’s quiet and spooked and she might be naked in his lap but it’s all going in the wrong direction. Well, he knows how to cure that. Take the direction away from her. She’s so totally different in the bedroom and – oh. How stupid of him. She doesn’t want to have control or make choices or be in a position where she might fail: she wants to be completely submissive and never make a decision at all: the furthest she’s gone is some mischievous suggestiveness. And he’s just told her that if she wins she’ll have to choose.

“I’ve changed my mind,” he says. “If you win, we wipe out all your naughtiness today and start again. But you don’t get to choose what we do. I do.” There’s a noticeable relaxation. He draws a slow hand easily over her hip, intimation of the next stop. “You won’t win, though. I don’t think you even want to win. I think you want to be controlled, told what to do. You want to be tied up, and tied down: held in one place for me to take and play with. You want to be my kitten: obedient and submissive and mine.” His voice drops deeper, rolling over her, dark and slow-moving as treacle, and pulling out her desires and darknesses in turn. “You might be naughty, because kittens are naughty and cats are independently-minded, but you know that I’ll deal with it. You want me to. Naughtiness has consequences, and you’ll enjoy them even as you beg me not to.” He stops. His words have brought her back to where she ought to be, excited, aroused, and back in the scene.

“So let’s go back to the game, kitten.” He strokes delicately over her breasts and down, slowly, letting her anticipate his touch; kisses equally delicately at her neck where the vein pulses frenetically; ends by taking her mouth inexorably and tracing firmly downward with his fingers as they slip into the wet heat between her legs. She writhes in his arms, lost in his words – they aren’t even particularly elegant words: he hasn’t managed elegant words with her for three weeks – and rapidly heating up to flashpoint. He’d never intended that she might win, but her insecurity at the thought of making sexual choices has left him determined that she won’t. Even if he has to cheat to ensure it.

She’s moving against him, seeking his touch, and he slides and rubs and brings her up higher; not reminding her yet that this is a game for the two of them to play, keeps her mouth under his lips and her body under his hand until there is no question but that she’s desperate and almost there.

“Now for the game, kitten. Whoever comes first, loses. I already know what I’ll do when I win.” He’s deliberately arrogant, confident: because surely even his bedroom-submissive kitten is not so entirely un-Beckett that she’s completely uncompetitive. He’s right. There’s an indignant mew-squeak – if he’d used that _I’m-gonna-win_ tone in the precinct he’d be mourning the loss of his left earlobe, or possibly his life, not listening to sexy-cute noises – and then a deeper breath.

“ _When_ you win?” Mostly, it’s softly questioning and breathy. Under it, though, there’s a hint of disbelief, a soupcon of competitiveness.

“When I win.” He slides the chain gently back and forth across her back. The breath slides through a half-gasp to an almost-moan. The sound is so seductive it takes him a moment to realise that his shirt is now open and his kitten is employing her claws on his chest, very delicately, and scraping them downward, followed by her wicked, wicked mouth on his pecs and nipples and her fingers opening his pants and she’s sliding out of his reach and back on to her knees. He needs to get back in control of this, fast.

How fortunate that he knows exactly how to.


	27. Death is a delightful hiding place

Castle catches her slim hands, wraps his large fingers round both her wrists and removes her ability to keep undoing him. In many senses. It’s a bit late for his clothes. But now he has a free hand and she – does not. If only she didn’t have a free mouth. Well. Not precisely free, any more. More… full. He really needs to stay in – _ohhh fuck_ – some sort of control here. Just for long enough to win.

He summons a clutch of deflating – so to speak – thoughts, which work for just enough time for him to rechain her wrists and then to place his hands over her breasts and work her up as she is working him up. He has the immense advantage that she was already on the edge and she’s been hot all day, and he intends – _fuck where did she learn that trick?_ – to use that. If only he can keep his own body at bay long enough to push her over. He plays and pinches and rolls and moulds and manages to bring one arm down so that he can touch far lower and tease the little knot of nerves and she’s so close and he is and he presses and she does scream around him so he does it again and again until he’s sure that she’s crashed and fallen and he can too.

He picks her up, puts her on his lap, undoes her hands and takes a grip of the leash in case she should try to disappear, and rearranges himself with her lying beside him, tucked in skin to skin and only his arms to keep her warm and close. He wants her warm and close, caught between the back of the couch and his own body, curled in and cosy and safe with him. He wraps around her, blesses the gods of wide, comfortable couches, and lets himself slip into the blissful contentment of afterglow and aftermath. Later, they’ll play some more. Later. For now, he only wants this soft togetherness.

Beckett is perfectly contented and perfectly relaxed, held against wide, warm male and not required to do or be anything at all. She closes her eyes and drifts into a half-doze, dreamy and dissociated from reality. No need to worry, with Castle between her and the outside world, between her and her demons. Others – but they’ll never know – might think this a fucked-up, perverted relationship, a sell-out of who she is and what she does, but the peace it now seems to bring her is too important and too necessary for her to care. She needs this and she needs him and that’s all that she cares about. He’ll keep her safe from the dark, even while they’re down in the dark.

She pulls his arm more closely around her and places her own hand over his, over her heart. Later, they can play some more. Later.

Castle is woken by an odd movement against him, and, not being fast to rouse, it takes him a few instants to realise that it is kitten-Beckett and, more importantly, she is shivering. Come to think of it, he’s not precisely warm himself. Well, there are solutions to that. He sits up, then stands, lifts Beckett, and repatriates both of them to her bedroom, tucking her under her linens – still cream, does she not have any other colour? It’s very… cool. Calm. Undemanding. A brief thought knocks on the door of his mind but runs off before he can greet it.

Beckett safely installed, Castle borrows her bathroom to wash up, has a swift thought and brings his bag into the bedroom, unpacks certain useful items on to – and into – the nightstand, and reflects happily as he slides into bed and into sleep that _cold_ is not going to figure in their next set of activities. After all, he won the game.

“Mine,” is the last thing he whispers, into the night, and his Beckett-kitten gives a small satisfied purr and curls against him, as if she’d heard it in her sleep.

He wakes briefly in the small hours, unsure why until he finds a space where company ought to be, and doesn’t return to sleep until she returns, disquieted by her absence and more so when her first act isn’t to curl close back in but to wrap herself around one of her many pillows in that closed, defensive position. He puts an assertive hand on her hip, and she sleepily unfurls and then re-furls within his grasp. He’ll defend her from her demons. After all, he’s her monster, and her route into darkness.

* * *

Morning dawns rather too brightly for Beckett’s taste. Gradually she realises that it’s because she hadn’t drawn the blinds, which probably means that it’s not only rather too bright, but rather too early. It becomes apparent that her bed is also rather too narrow, which seems to be a consequence of Castle occupying rather too much of it. Nearly all of it. She has about four inches and is in imminent danger of falling out.

It’s definitely too early to be awake. She may like mornings, but not – she peers blearily at the clock – at five a.m. On the other hand, if she is to return to sleep she needs some space in which to do so. Four inches of bed is not enough. Castle is, it seems, a bed thief. This is not a good quality. She nudges him back towards the middle – which takes some effort and sharp elbows – and wriggles back under the covers to close her eyes firmly again.

Her closing eyes are quite unfairly disturbed by a heavy grip re-establishing itself around her middle, a large body moving back over into her side to achieve this, and a sleep-soaked slur that might be translated into _stop running away, kitten_. She hadn’t intended to. Quite the opposite, in fact. She solves the entire problem by snuggling into Castle and allows his warmth and size to flow around her and soothe her back to sleep.

When she wakes up again, it’s because Castle is very gently, but persistently, dropping tiny kisses on the back of her neck and whiffling warm breath on it to boot.

“You’re cute when you’re asleep,” he notes, “but I like it better when you’re awake.” He scowls theatrically. “You fell asleep before I could collect my winnings.”

Beckett blinks. This… unusual… relationship aside, her mornings have generally been defined by rising and getting on with the day as quickly as possible. They have not previously encompassed being detained in bed by a large, sensual, and very dominant male. They had also not previously encompassed still – or at all, for that matter – wearing a collar and cuffs or trailing a leash. Ah. _Not_ trailing. The leash is firmly gripped in Castle’s hand. Which has left his other hand taking hold of both of hers, placing them above her head and – oh. _Ohhhh_. She’s suddenly very fully awake, in mind and, hotly and darkly, in body. Castle has just run the short chain through one of the spindles of her headboard and clipped each end to a cuff. In short, her hands are bound.

“I won,” he growls. “So now” – she twists to try to escape his hands, and knows that not only will she fail but that very shortly she won’t have breath or brain to care – “I’ll take my winnings.” He easily holds her still, disregarding her ineffectual, ineffective wriggling. “Any way I please.” He traces the end of the leash over her breasts, her stomach; stops and idly dances it in and out of her navel. “You were disobedient, and then you lost the game. Time to pay up.”

“Please…”

“Please what? Please don’t? I don’t think you mean that.” His free hand slithers across damp folds and elicits a moan. “No. I really don’t think you do. Not that it matters. You’re my pet, and pets don’t make decisions. Their owners do.” He looks down at her, wholly dominant now, and she flexes under his gaze.

“Please…” she meows softly, and all her wants and desires are spilling from her single word as he starts to play with her. He takes her mouth hard, forcing one thick thigh between hers and using it to hold her steady as she tries to rub against it, skates over her erect nipples and then returns more slowly to tease and tantalise. She attempts to arch into him and fails, and then tries again as he removes his leg. The error this has been – or is it? – is immediately apparent. She succeeds in pushing into his seductive movements. Castle takes instant advantage to pull the chain down her back – and does nothing more with it. Yet. She’s sure he’s going to, but she can’t think about that while he’s now using his mouth on her breasts and his fingers are thrusting in and out of her and _ohhh_ he’s hitting just the right spot _ohhh please_ and she tugs against the cuffs and twists against his fingers and the heel of his hand _right there please more sir please_ and suddenly he’s stopped and _ohhhh_ she’s so close and so desperate and…

“You’re almost there, aren’t you? Tied up and soaked and screaming for more. Time to pay up.” The cool metal threads against her and sits very precisely on just the right spot, pulled taut, just the right side to press without pain, and locked home.

“Please, don’t, please. I’ll be good. Don’t do this.” She’s already moving under the pressure.

“If you’re not disciplined for disobedience, how will you learn?   If you stay still, it won’t tease.” He looks down at her, as she tries desperately not to move, smiles with predatory satisfaction. “Don’t come, kitten.” He unlocks her hands, rolls her over on to her front, and re-pins her, before she ever has a chance to react. Not that she wants to do anything other than sink into the one place where she can’t lose, and can’t fail. But face down is just a little frightening: she can’t see him, she’s exposed and he’s never hurt her but he said she needed disciplined and she’s scared of that – and more scared because this is a whole new level of giving in since that very first time and she’s dead certain she wouldn’t like it because she’s been hurt enough on the job and doesn’t need hurt any more – and she can’t stop whatever he’s going to do but she trusts him and she trusts her safe-word and he has to trust that she will safe-word if she doesn’t like it and anyway the pressure of the chain is already sending fire scorching through her and _please_.

He leaves the bed. “I need a shower.” He smiles more sharply, more dangerously – she can hear it in his voice. “But in case you were thinking of disobeying me – again – I’ll just help you not to.” He opens the drawer of her nightstand, out of her view. She can’t see what’s in his hands as he moves round to the foot of the bed, pushes her ankles apart, clicks cuffs around them, and then pins her legs open, places a pillow very precisely under her stomach to prevent her taking any friction from the sheets, however small. “Back in a few minutes.”

“Please,” she whimpers. “Please don’t make me wait.”

“Patience is a virtue. As is cleanliness. You have to learn that it’s not about what you want.”

He isn’t actually going to have a shower – yet. He has every intention of having a shower – with Kat – but right now he’s just going to stay out of view for a moment or two while she winds herself up, and then he’ll go back and play with her. He does take the opportunity to brush his teeth with a finger and some borrowed – stolen, it’s not like you can give it back – toothpaste. He can hear her hurried, harried breaths, the half moans, and returns to lean on the doorframe and simply enjoy the view for a little time.

She’s so very close: she was close before he did this and she can’t _not_ move. She’s scorched and soaked and the chain isn’t moving but it presses enough that she can’t ignore it: she’s whimpering and then moaning and he’s left her and it’s too much, too exciting and she _can’t do this_ because it’s too hot, too good, too strong and it certainly doesn’t involve hurt and she’s begging again _please I’ll do whatever you tell me sir please_ and suddenly he’s there, running a hard hand ominously over her ass.

“So pretty,” he muses, “open and presented to me like this. Held still for anything I choose to do.” His hand stills for a moment on her rear. “Discipline actually means teaching,” he says meditatively, “and you certainly need teaching a lesson.” He twitches the chain under his palm, and she moans and then whimpers again. “I suppose this is one way of teaching you. There are others.” The menace in his tone is palpable, the pat on her backside gently meaningful. “How would you like that, I wonder? Over my knee, face down?”

He knows exactly what he’s doing – and what he isn’t. He is taking her into a scene, with words. He is _not_ , because he’s still perfectly sure that pain is not any part of her kink – rough play and simulated force, yes, definitely, and he will certainly take her there over and over again, as often as she likes – actually _ever_ going to do anything that might hurt her without some words-of-one-syllable, very, very, explicit consent. But he can take her into the scene where they can both pretend that he will. The thought will be enough, he thinks, to excite her, where the reality would not.

“Do you like that thought?” She shakes her head. “Words, kitten. Use your words.”

“No-o.” He looks down at her and consciously pulls on an aura of intimidation.

“Don’t lie to me.” A finger slips over her, twitching the chain again. “You’re soaked, and hot, and you’ve thought about it since I put you in this position.” He strokes again, and she mewls, tries and fails to push into his searching touch. “Question is, would it really teach you anything? You know you have to do what I want. You know I’m bigger, stronger, and in charge.” He pats her rear again, noticeable but not painful, drags fingertips through her sodden folds and notes carefully that while she’s tense, she’s also very, very wet.   “I don’t think I need to spank you to teach you your lesson.” There’s a little sigh of relief, a small relaxation. The words have done it for her, where the reality would not. “On the other hand, I think that putting you over my knee would allow some other teaching methods. You’d still be open to me, completely under my control. We’ll try it, sometime. Maybe with your little toy.”

Who is this _we_? She doesn’t think that there is a _we_ in this decision making process. But the thought of the submissive position is shamefully, shamelessly erotic. Just like the position she’s currently in, which is driving her higher and higher and she’s been making helpless noises completely without volition for the last several minutes and now all her inner muscles are fluttering and beginning to spasm and she can’t find a single solitary thought that isn’t wholly sexual and nothing is bringing her down at all.

She twists and writhes, and then he’s there: undoing her, unlocking just in time. He turns her desperate, glistening, unresisting body over, spreads her open before him and idly dips fingers through her, undoing and sliding the chain out of the way, re-fixing her to hold her for his gaze and pleasure.

“There. All laid out for me. I always did like buffets.” He grins wolfishly, and begins. When she screams, he stops, waits a moment, and starts again. He repeats that a few more times, until she can’t get breath to make any noise. Finally, he releases her and then pins her down, taking her slowly and thoroughly and never quite giving her everything she wants and pleads for: purring darkly _wait, kitten_ but finally murmuring into her ear _now, come for me now_ , thrusts hard and she does.

After, once more, he holds her close, an armful of snugglement cocooned against him; all her sharp angles and whipcord muscle softened and pettable. His. After he’s had his fill of gentle aftercare and petting her, he carries her to the shower and indulges himself in washing his Kat’s body and hair before he presses her against the shower wall and shows her just exactly what can be done to edge her and keep her there using a removable shower head, strong arms, and a little flexibility. And when that is done, he orders her to kneel, and take him into her mouth, and when she obediently submits to his command, and surrenders to his requirements, it brings him to growling, groaning release, and a growing certainty that he should never let her go.

He dries her carefully, keeping her, as yesterday, on the edge as he does; but unlike yesterday this time he re-locks on the collar and leash, and the cuffs, and leaves the short chain dangling; leads her back through and selects another pretty sundress from her wardrobe. She has a surprisingly large number of dresses, for someone who seems to wear nothing but pants to work. She reaches for it, and he tuts.

“I’ll dress you.” And he does. Dressing appears to consist of the dress alone. Underwear hasn’t figured. She wriggles. “Breakfast, kitten.” Ah. This is going to be a problem. She hasn’t done any grocery shopping since she was ill. Not that she has any breakfast on the list anyway. Her favourite coffee shop sells excellent pastries and that’s what she eats for breakfast. If she can be bothered with breakfast. Coffee is non-negotiable, however.

Castle is still holding on to the leash when he opens the fridge. Then he drops it, looks at Beckett, utterly speechless, and any scene he might have been plotting (she is sure that he had been thinking of one, involving food) clearly completely ruined.

“You have no food. None. How have you no food at all? You don’t even have orange juice.” He sounds totally flabbergasted. “Don’t you eat breakfast?”

“I get it on the way to work. No point having it here.” Dominant Castle has been completely replaced by Domestic Castle.

“But what about weekends? Or days off?” Ah. Well. There isn’t exactly going to be a good way to put the next answer, is there?

“I get something at the coffee-bar.”

“ _The_ coffee-bar? There are lots of coffee-bars in Manhattan…” He gapes at her. Oh, _dammit_. He’s far too good at words and textual analysis and she’s slipped up. “The coffee-bar by the precinct? Why would you be there on” – he slows up – “your…” Hell and damnation. “You don’t take days off, do you? I should have guessed that. What about when you’re off-shift? Or don’t you do that either?”

Beckett doesn’t answer. Domestic Castle acquires an overcoating of Dominant Castle.

“Well, I do breakfast.” He, somewhat reluctantly, unlocks the jewellery and drops it on the table. “We’re going out to get some. Right now. You’d better get some shoes.” It’s her turn to gape.

“Shoes, Beckett. Or I’ll carry you, and think what a spectacle _that_ would be.”


	28. Deadly sins

Beckett retreats to find shoes and – importantly – underwear. She’s not exactly large, but nor is she precisely flat, and bouncing is uncomfortable and, in the New York summer heat, stickily unpleasant. As might other areas be. Nor does she want to be a circus spectacle, being carried around by the strongman.

However. She’s fairly sure this hadn’t been in Dominant Castle’s plan, but since he hasn’t actually said so it’s not disobedience, and anyway she is more than a little irritated by his comments about her lack of food. She smirks nastily to herself. She can chop logic and semantics with the best of them. She rummages through her drawer and right at the bottom finds some rather pretty, lacy scraps which she hasn’t worn in a very long time. Those will do just fine. She thinks that maybe next weekend will involve a little shopping trip, on her own, for some new pretty scraps – actually, it could be today. Tonight, she suddenly remembers, she’s supposed to be having dinner with her father. It’s the Fourth of July, after all. Her illness has left her a bit disconnected from the calendar, and she should have realised earlier.

A couple of rapid wriggles later she is dressed again, with a pair of comfortable ballet flats. She has found that, off-duty, it’s rather nice to feel that Castle is noticeably larger than she. It gives her a very unreasonable sense of comfort and security. On-duty, however, she wants her kick-ass heels and her badass reputation, and she certainly doesn’t need comfort. She, after all, provides the security.

When she re-emerges Castle is still looking through her kitchen and muttering to himself.

“Do you actually eat?” It’s just a little accusatory for Beckett’s taste (that would be any questioning of her eating arrangements at all, then, because in any other circumstances that would have been a reasonable tone to take for asking questions). Any remaining remnants of kittenishness fall away.

“Yes. How do you think I do my job if I don’t eat?”

“You’ve got no food here.” Still accusatory. She’s not having that.

“Newsflash: I was ill, and then _someone_ hasn’t given me any time to go to the store.” It’s not exactly a lie. She’d have got round to going to the store, eventually. She might even have bought some fresh food as well as salad leaves. If she has a salad alongside some takeout, or with pasta, then that’s her five-a-day sorted.

“If you’d said, we could have gone to the store any time yesterday.”

“Well, I didn’t. And stop searching through my kitchen. It’s not yours. Unless you want me to search your study?”

There’s a distinct snap at the end of that sentence. Still-mostly-Domestic Castle looks at her with one eyebrow raised. Fortunately a sudden influx of sense prevents him saying anything and forces the errant eyebrow back down. Beckett is not a child and he still needs to remember that she does _not_ need babied, however he might play with or treat kitten-Kat. _Back off, Rick. You’re being an idiot._

Castle runs an assessing gaze over Beckett, who is looking very much her normal, unsubmissive self despite the dress and flats. She is also, clearly, wearing underwear. At least, it’s clear to him. Her silhouette is just a tad more structured than earlier. Ah, well. He hadn’t told her _not_ to. He thinks for a mere fraction of an instant. Okay, there is a compromise here: a little exertion of his authority off-duty, as it were. He’ll go shopping. If she wants underwear, he’ll choose it. Off-duty.

“Time for brunch, Beckett. This time I’m buying.”

“Sure. It’s your turn.”

“Let’s go eat. I’m hungry, and I’m sure you’re desperate for coffee.”                             

Brunch happens, and involves a substantial quantity of coffee and barely fewer pastries. _Where does she put them all_? Castle wonders, as yet another Danish disappears.

“Now what?”

“I need to do my shopping. After all, I’ve no food, have I? So I’d better go do it.”

There’s a very Beckett bite on that line. Where has his kitten _gone_? There’s not a hint of a kitten, nor yet a Kat. This is Beckett through and through. In fact, there’s been a distinctly Beckett atmosphere ever since he commented on her lack of food. Uh-oh. _Careful, Rick. Be very careful_. Just because he _wants_ to protect her doesn’t mean he has the right to interfere in the ordinary aspects of her life. Even if he thinks she should take better care of herself, it’s not up to him outside their currently agreed arrangement; he hasn’t actually seen enough of her normality to judge her everyday, non-bedroom habits; and if he starts down that line he’ll be looking at a closed door and quite possibly the inside of a hospital room. From traction. He really, really has to keep this protective streak confined to the bedroom. He doesn’t get it. He’s never been this protective before, and he absolutely has to avoid it tipping – inadvertently, but that won’t save his ass – into controlling.

“Thank you for brunch.”

“Oh.” Castle regroups. He’d rather intended to spend the rest of the day somewhere relatively close to Beckett, but it looks pretty clear that this won’t be happening, and anyway grocery shopping is boring. “Join us for dinner. I’ve got a great meal planned and then we’ll go see the Macy’s fireworks.”

“Can’t.”

“Huh?”

“Can’t. I’m having dinner with my dad, then we’re going to the fireworks.”

“Oh.” He should have thought of that. Earlier. Except they weren’t in any sort of anything at that point so he wouldn’t have thought of it. “Maybe we’ll see you at the fireworks?” Beckett raises an eyebrow in disbelief.

“How many people are at the Macy’s fireworks? There’s no way we’d manage that, no matter how carefully we arranged it.” Besides which, she is not at all sure that she wants to introduce her father to Castle. Not yet. Not until she has a better explanation for herself of…well, all of it. “And do you really want to meet my dad? With Alexis in tow?” She smiles suddenly. “Though Dad would probably like her.”

“Her? What about me?”

Another elevated eyebrow occurs. “Castle, how do you behave with Alexis’s dates?”

“She hasn’t had one.”

“Well, she will.” Castle looks dumbstruck at the thought. Beckett snickers.   “That’s going to be interesting,” she smirks.

“Alexis is perfectly sensible and mature. I don’t need to worry. Anyway, she’s not interested in boys.”

“She’s – what, fifteen? Of course she’s interested in boys. Or maybe girls. Even if she’s sensible, I bet she’ll be having dates before you know it.”   Castle grumps blackly into the dregs of his coffee, but then suddenly sparks into life.

“You said we’re dating.”

“What?” _Dating_? This is not _dating_. This is many things, but _dating_ is definitely not one of them. Dating involves civilised coffees and dinners and the movies and walks in the park and… oh my God. Okay, with their own particular twist on matters, but they have done all of those in the last couple of days, and they were even intending to go dancing. Oh. How did that happen without her noticing?

“If you said we’re dating, then we must be dating, Beckett.” Castle smiles extremely smugly. Then his voice drops to a soft murmur inaudible two feet away. “Or something like that.” The expression on his face resembles that of a lion presented with a particularly fat and juicy antelope.   “I think we’ve gone a bit further than simply dating, though.” Beckett blushes brightly.

“Not the point,” she says briskly. Castle smirks evilly at the rosy blush, still very obviously present. She regroups. “How would you behave if Alexis brought a date home?”

Castle chokes on the last drip of coffee in his cup. “I’d be perfectly mature and reasonable about it,” he says.

“Right. That’s why your fist is clenched. You’re planning to polish your shotgun and leave it on the table.”

“I don’t have a shotgun,” he points out, caught out.

“Yet. My dad does, though. You’ll be just as intimidating as any other dad. Won’t you?”

There’s a disgruntled mutter. It might, on analysis, be _s’pose so_. It might equally well have been _hrrrumph_.

“What has any of this got to do with meeting you at the fireworks anyway?” Castle says petulantly. “I’m perfectly charming.”

“Let’s just try out this conversation. ‘Hi Castle. Oh, Dad, meet Rick Castle. This is the man I haven’t told you I’m dating. Oh, that’s nice. How did you meet?’ How were you planning to explain that to my dad and your daughter? Dad is a lawyer. He’s good at cross-examination.”

Castle sits, open-mouthed. “Well, if you put it like that…”

“You mean you don’t want to explain? Good, ‘cause neither do I.” She doesn’t say _and you promised me no-one would ever know_. Castle is quite clearly imagining what he would do and say if it were his daughter, and equally clearly doesn’t like the answer. Something about the way his mouth is working unpleasantly and his fists are both clenching gives Beckett _that_ clue.

“Okay,” he says slowly. “I get that.” He pauses. Beckett suddenly has the most peculiar impression that it’s not _only_ , or even _mostly_ , the thought of Alexis in this sort of a deal that’s annoying him. “But I don’t want to lie to your dad, Beckett.” She stares at him.

“What? Why would you? You aren’t going to meet him.”

Castle’s mouth opens and shuts, opens again and slowly shuts again. “Did you mean that like it sounded? I’m never going to meet your dad?” Ire coats the sentences.

There’s a pause. Beckett considers that. “No-o,” she says slowly. “But… not yet, okay?”

Castle subsides from the anger that had been about to flow. _Not yet_ is bearable. _No_ is not. Beckett’s still horribly insecure about this. His busy, devious brain begins to churn. She’s admitted they’re dating ( _yes_!), but she doesn’t want anyone to know about the private proclivities, so she won’t introduce him to her father, so… the solution is to date some more, and then come up with a perfectly reasonable story which goes like this: she arrested him, she inspired him, he started following her on the job, and gradually it started to develop into something more. Which is at least partially true. Matters are certainly developing into something more since he began to follow her. It’s just that they’d have developed a lot faster if she’d ever voluntarily returned to the club – that is, before she arrested him.

While he’s been scheming, Beckett has finished her Danish, drained her coffee, and is making movements indicative of leaving to get on with her day.

“I need to get going,” she says. Castle glances up.

“You don’t really,” he entices. “Have another coffee.” She looks tempted, but then Beckett-stubbornness takes over.

“I do.”

“Okay. If you won’t come for dinner tonight, come tomorrow instead.” He smiles, with predatory edges. Beckett shrugs.

“Let’s see.” She grins mischievously. “I might get another offer. Who knows, George Clooney may be lurking at the fireworks.”

Castle puts his hand very firmly on her knee, under the table. “He couldn’t compete,” he says, and draws a wicked little line up her leg, stopping a fraction short of invisible indecency. “You like _me_.” His voice drops into the sable murmur that strokes her without touching. “And you like what I do with you.” More silky purring. “And you’d like it tomorrow, too.” And still more, caressing her. “You’d like it this evening, or this afternoon, or now.” She hasn’t made it to standing up yet. She’s not entirely sure that her knees will hold.

“But you’re adamant you need to go grocery shopping,” he says briskly. “So anything else will have to wait.”

There aren’t even any more coffee or Danishes to hide in. He – _rat!_ – knew exactly what he’s just done. He has far too many words and they are far too seductive. She already knows that she’ll go for dinner tomorrow. She simply isn’t going to say so now. She isn’t.

“See you tomorrow, then.” Dammit. She has.

“Seven o’clock, Beckett. Till tomorrow.”

Beckett disappears with some rapidity, before he can discombobulate her any further. It’s probably as well that Castle can’t see her face. She really, really likes what he can do for her, and the more he does it, the more she likes it. Him. Them. But – dating? Really? This isn’t about dating or normality or anything she might read about in love stories, not that she reads many – any – of those. But whatever it is, it’s working for her. Him. Them. Anyway. It’s not just grocery shopping she’s intending to do. Her smile is kittenish – tiger kittenish. Danger abounds in that smile, and a dark knowledge of what she’s inviting.

She’s walked past the shop innumerable times, and run past it a few more. She’s never bothered even looking in the window. Today, though, she’s not just looking in the window – which was interesting and attractive – she’s rather nervously entering. The nervousness is more because she’s doing something she hasn’t done in – actually, that she has never done. She is about to select underwear based on pleasing not just herself, but attracting someone else. She pulls on badass-Beckettness and the confidence she wears in the bullpen, and begins to look around.

There are a _lot_ of very pretty scraps of fabric and lace. A little piece of Kate that she had thought long gone re-asserts itself. She’d used to love pretty underwear, but she’d lost all that over the years. This shop, however, is classy: sexy without being slutty – though she could buy that too in here – formfitting without being uncomfortable. She becomes enthusiastic.

Quite some time later, she exits the shop bedecked with bags, considerably poorer, and quite certain that she will need to take all this home before she can go food shopping. She has no ability to carry anything more. In fact, she’ll just flag that cab which is conveniently right over there and go home in comfort.

So she does. In consequence, she is clear of University Place approximately five minutes before Castle appears there.

Castle, courtesy of two marriages and a colourful life, coincident with nearly two decades of substantial wealth, is well acquainted with the better class of lingerie shops in Manhattan, and is rather looking forward to exploring them for the sole purpose of dressing his Kat in something much better than plain pale cotton, of which she has far too much. Classy underwear, though. Definitely not slutty. This one, being both relatively close to home and well-known to him as classy, is a very good place to start. He goes in with perfect confidence, and emerges a long while later with two very discreetly un-logoed bags and a very satisfied smile. Though it is a little odd that the staff had had to retrieve from the stockroom the correct size of around half of the items he had picked out. He’d have thought that a reasonably standard size would be on the shelves. Still, white is white, but the colours he has chosen will complement Beckett’s beautiful skin perfectly. And a little anticipation on his part won’t hurt him, either.

None of his good intentions and considerable lack of any desire to explain how he met Beckett either to Alexis – who has been remarkably deaf, blind and silent on the subject of what he is actually doing when ostensibly following Beckett around, and why it involves so many late nights, especially given her beady-eyed scrutiny of his behaviour towards Beckett on Thursday and Friday night – or to Beckett Senior, stop him casting relatively discreet glances around the packed crowd at the Macy fireworks.

“Dad, are you paying any attention?” Ah. Maybe not that discreet.

“Yes,” he grumps. “I love fireworks.”

“You keep looking at the crowd.”

“People watching.”

Alexis emits a very cynical noise. “Really, Dad? Are you sure you aren’t Beckett-watching? Or more accurately, hoping for a murder?”

“Since she’s not here, and a murder would definitely spoil the fireworks, yes.”

Alexis looks thoroughly sceptical, but drops the subject in a flood of _oohs_ and _ahs_ as the display gets bigger and better and even more pyrotechnically fabulous.

* * *

“Why do you keep looking around like that, Katie? Bored of your Dad already?”

“No, Dad.”

“Well, what is it? Don’t tell me you’re seeking out a crime scene. You’re off duty.”

Beckett laughs. “Cop habit. We’re always looking out for bad guys. Tell you what, I’ll catch them and you can put them away.”

“I’m a corporate lawyer, not criminal, Katie.” Beckett wrinkles her nose at him, childishly, and then looks back up at the spectacular fireworks.

“You’re not looking for that Castle fellow, are you?” He pretends vague ignorance. Actually, Jim knows exactly who Castle is. He’d looked him up immediately Katie had first mentioned that Montgomery had inflicted him upon her, and remembered how much Johanna and then Katie had liked the books. Still, Katie’s initial reaction to Castle following her around had been the sort of icily intense fury he thought she had reserved for useless bureaucracy and anything that stops her doing her job. Very recently – as in tonight – that’s rather altered.

“What?”

“Well, you mentioned over dinner that he was coming to the fireworks with his daughter, so I thought you might be looking for him. It would be nice to meet a friend of yours.” He looks fondly at his daughter, with that mischievous look that fathers put on when they get a chance to tease their daughters.

“Dad! He’s an overgrown toddler with a hyperactivity problem. I came here with you for a family evening.”

“None of which amounts to a denial, Katie.”

“No, Dad, I am not looking for Castle. I’m enjoying a day off from being followed around by a lolloping overgrown Labrador.”

Jim Beckett looks thoroughly sceptical, but drops the subject. He is fairly certain that Katie doesn’t realise that she’d mentioned Castle at least every third sentence, all evening. He’s also pretty certain that she doesn’t realise that every time she had mentioned him her voice softened. Very slightly, but softened. Good. It’s about time she had a boyfriend. Or even a friend, other than the ME she sometimes says she’s been out with. On the other hand, if this Castle fellow puts so much as a toenail out of line, well, he’s sure his shotgun still works. Though Katie’s Glock will probably work better, and sooner.

“Okay,” he says, and grins to himself when he’s absolutely sure Katie’s staring at the sky.

Later that night, long after she had bade her father farewell and gone home, Beckett is meditatively sipping a late night coffee, mildly laced with alcohol – it’s Independence Day, after all, and she’s entitled to a little celebration which she could never have had in front of her father – and considering her day. Specifically, she is considering her purchases and admiring them in a most unusually feminine way. Maybe she should start to take a little more pleasure in her clothes and appearance. She wanders through to her bathroom and strips down to her very plain and boring underwear. Actually, she looks great. No reason she shouldn’t dress a little better. It would go nicely with her kickass heels.

Hmmm. Those heels are almost the last remnant of the woman she used to be. Everything else is – has gradually become – strictly functional. Even the heels are such that she can run in them. Obviously she’s never going to be able to do her job in some stupid designer skirt or dress, but that doesn’t mean she can’t look intimidatingly good within the confines of practicality.

Time to try to find some more of the old Kate Beckett, who’d been confident, stylish, and sexy in all of her life, rather than buried in work and nothing else, and in the meantime she’ll carry on with this strange, underworld, other Kat; whom she’d discovered one dark January evening in the reflection in the East River and then in a dangerous club on the wrong side of town.

No reason she can’t be both, as and when required. No reason at all.

 


	29. Fatal attraction

At six p.m. on Sunday evening Beckett looks thoroughly through her pretty new possessions and selects carefully. Okay, so they’re still mostly pastels, but they’re attractive, and, when she puts a set on and looks herself up and down in the mirror, extremely flattering. Worth their extortionate prices, certainly.

She puts a dress on, stops, sits down on the bed, and chews her lip nervously. She’s considering something that scares her silly. She’s considering actively inviting Castle to do as he pleases with her. She looks at the necklace in the nightstand drawer into which she’d tidied all the – um – _items_ , looks away again; looks back, picks it up, puts it down, closes the drawer, reopens the drawer, picks it up again, draws it through her fingers, stares at it as it dangles from her hand.

What if that’s the wrong thing to do? What if… what if she isn’t supposed to? He’d said _if you say gold I’ll know you need me_ , so maybe she is able to start the game; but he’d disciplined her for trying to push him into taking her back to bed. That had been part of the same game, though, and he’d said that if she said she needed it he wouldn’t refuse but he’d choose how. Seek permission, or ask forgiveness? Or is it going to end up as both? Anyway, she’ll have all of dinner to work it out. Nothing’s going to happen till they arrive back here. But what if taking this step is wrong? _What if she fails?_ She can’t stand failing with this too. She’s got little enough as it is, and if she loses this – him – she’ll have nothing.

She takes a very deep breath, clicks the necklace shut around her neck, slips on heels, and leaves for dinner.

Castle is happily concocting another well-balanced and nutritious meal, heavily disguised with a chocolate and raspberry dessert which is probably capable of inducing heart failure if he so much as looks at it. Alexis is buzzing round being helpful – chopping salad ingredients, mostly. Her conversation is not particularly helpful, since she’s teasing him about Beckett and the precinct, and becomes still less so when his mother joins in.

“Hi, Grams.”

“Is that dinner, sweetie? Wonderful. I’ve been rehearsing all day and I’m positively famished.” Castle considers his dinner plans rather plaintively and doesn’t comment. His mother had _said_ she wouldn’t be home. “What is it?”

“Dad’s making chicken Alfredo and I’m making the salad. Dessert’s in the fridge.”

Martha investigates the fridge, removing a pleasant bottle of white wine as she casts a beady eye over the dessert. She pours before she says anything. There is rather too much obvious effort for it to be dinner simply for the family.

“Is your nice Detective Beckett coming for dinner again, darling?”

“Yes, Mother.” His tone is not conducive to further conversation. Unfortunately, his mother is not receptive to hints.

“You’ve invited her nearly every night since Thursday.”

“She’s been ill. She’s got to be healthy, otherwise who’ll protect me when I’m shadowing her? I wouldn’t want to be shot because she’s too ill to lift a gun.”

His mother regards him extremely sceptically, but her next, undoubtedly discomposing, comment is stifled by a rap on the door. Castle’s move in that direction is forestalled by Alexis’s happy squeak and dash for the door. Really, Alexis is fifteen. A teenager. She should loathe all of his friends. Not that Beckett’s exactly a friend… Why has he got such a civilised teen? Though he doesn’t want Alexis to dislike Beckett, either. Maybe just be a little less enthusiastically supportive? He can manage his own love life, and he’d quite like to keep it that way.

“That must be Detective Beckett,” his mother says. “It’s so nice that Alexis likes her. Such an improvement on most of your female… friends.” There is no possible response to that that will not get Castle into a seriously sticky situation, so he contents himself with a glare.

“Hey, Alexis,” Beckett says as she steps inside and into view.

“Hi, Detective Beckett,” Alexis bubbles happily. “You’re going to love dinner. Come on in. Where did you get that necklace? It’s really pretty. I’d love one like that.”

Castle looks across the room just in time to clock the necklace and choke on his greetings at Alexis’s words. Over his cold, dead body. That necklace is strictly for adults, and Alexis won’t be sufficiently adult until she’s sixty-five. And if that’s hypocritical, he really does not give a damn.

“It was a present,” Beckett says calmly. “I’m not sure it would suit you,” – she’s damn right it wouldn’t suit Alexis, ever – “your skin’s so white that you’d really look better with some coloured stones to set off your complexion properly. This would just disappear on you.” She grins wickedly. “I’d go for emeralds, with your skin and hair. Tourmalines or peridots, if your Dad won’t cough up for emeralds, or there’s always jade.”

Castle excuses himself before he explodes. She’s wearing his collar, which is astounding – but he can’t stand much more of a conversation teetering along the edge of a very dangerous precipice. One false step or misstated word and disaster will ensue. But _she’s wearing the collar_. He takes refuge in his bedroom before he either betrays every single one of his feelings by kissing Beckett – Kitten – into blancmange and then leaving precipitately with her, or expires from strangulation of those same feelings. _She’s wearing his collar_. Finally she’s accepted who she can be with him.

He takes a moment or two, calms himself down, checks that his expression doesn’t include anything that his mother might spot as being unusual, and wanders back out very casually to continue his culinary efforts. Along the way, he removes the white wine from in front of his mother and places it near the glasses he’d put out for Beckett and himself.

“Wine, Beckett? Help yourself. Mother already has, so if you don’t you’ll miss out.” There’s a harrumphing noise behind him.

Beckett doesn’t pick the wine up and pour. In fact, she’s placed her hands very firmly in her lap and knotted them together. Tightly. There’s a well-hidden hint of uncertainty in her expression, though she’s watching Alexis and his mother with a surface coating of her usual sardonic calm. She is not looking at him.

“Something else? Are you driving?”

“No, wine would be nice, thank you.” She looks up, briefly, more uncertainty in her eyes, as if she thinks she’s done something wrong. Ah. A little reassurance that actually she’s done something that he very, _very_ much appreciates is needed. Castle smiles in a vaguely encouraging fashion, suitable for public consumption – that is to say, his family.

“I like that necklace,” he says. “It suits you. You should put it on more often.” His words are very carefully chosen to sound entirely innocent to his family and simultaneously let Beckett know that he is very happy that she is wearing it of her own volition. Beckett’s eyes flick up to meet his, and just for an instant he lets his own heat flow into his face.

She relaxes. She’s got it right. She hasn’t messed this up. Wine arrives in her glass and she picks it up.

“To getting back to work,” she toasts.

“Murders and mysteries, real and fictional,” Castle answers.

“Oh, darlings. How macabre. To good parts, good actors, and good friends,” Martha counters. “Oh – and good reviews.”

Alexis mutters something that sounds regrettably like “Good grades” and lifts her lemonade.

Dinner passes off with only a few edgy moments, though Castle becomes more tense by the moment, especially when Martha starts admiring Beckett’s necklace over coffee afterwards. Beckett plays it all off with perfect aplomb and doesn’t indicate by a single look, eye-blink or startle that it is anything other than a pretty piece of costume jewellery.

“Costume, Detective? A woman as beautiful as you should wear the real thing.”

“Unfortunately the city doesn’t pay me that much.” Beckett makes very certain she isn’t looking at Castle when she speaks.

“But it’s lovely, anyway. Whoever gave you it must have had very strong feelings for you.”

“I’m sure they did,” Beckett manages, succeeding in preserving a poker face. The way she remembers it, there had been a lot of strength involved. Every single time. She’d certainly felt it, too. She absolutely does not look at Castle. If she does she’ll collapse in laughter. Instead, she drains her cup.

“Thank you for dinner. I’d better get home. I’m on shift first thing.”

“I’ll see you home.”

“You don’t need to. I’ll be fine.” But the look in her eye says that she doesn’t expect or want him to agree with her.

“You forgot your gun.”

“I didn’t forget it. I don’t bring it to civilised dinners. Shooting over the dinner table went out with the Wild West.”

Castle reaches the door. “Still seeing you home, Beckett.”

“Glad to see _some_ manners stuck,” Martha mutters, as the door shuts behind them. “Now, what did Richard do with that wine? Perfect companion for a solo evening. Who does he think he’s fooling? Seeing her home?”

* * *

Castle waits until he’s safely in the cab before embarking on the discussion he’s been planning since he looked up as Beckett entered his loft.

“I’m glad you put that necklace on,” he purrs into her ear. It’s almost the same as he’d said earlier, but now his tone is entirely different. His arm slides around her, and she readily curls close, still a little relieved that she hasn’t mis-stepped, or over-stepped, still a little uncertain of the rules of this strange game. His fingers stroke over the edges of the collar. “But I have to wonder why.” His other hand lies warm and strong on her knee, slowly tracing her clasped hands.

“Are you asking me for something, kitten?” The arm around her tightens, trapping her; the hand on her knee turns over and closes around her wrists. The _something_ he’s offering is clear. “I think you are. You’re accepting that I own you. You’re admitting that you want me to. You’re completely mine.” The purr has dropped down the octaves until it’s a deep, velvety baritone; seeping into her nerves and slinking over her skin. She tries to squirm closer, and is held more firmly.

“Only what I allow you, pet. Stay still.”   She’s sufficiently wrapped in that there isn’t much choice. It’s so easy, and so good, not to have a choice. There will be plenty of choices, and plenty of decisions, to be made when she’s back at work tomorrow. Right now, there’s still a little space of peace.

“Now, where was I? Oh, yes. You’re showing me that you know I own you. You want me, but you know that you’re only allowed to ask. It’s all up to me. So you put on your collar to ask, without having to use your words.” He smiles down, and tucks her in a little further. “I like that, but you can’t do it every time. You’ll need to use words sometime. Starting now. Why are you wearing that collar, kitten?”

Beckett suddenly smiles sexily and mischievously. “Miaow,” she murmurs, and looks up, half-submissively, half-naughtily, through her eyelashes. Castle looks at her, open-mouthed, then gives up, collapses in laughter, and then can’t resist kissing her. He intends to drop a _you-win_ flavoured quick kiss on her, and then deal with her mischief-making appropriately, out of public view. The quick kiss does indeed occur. It just doesn’t stop there.

He’s still kissing her as the cab pulls up at her building, which really had not been the plan, and it’s hardly been quick or gentle. If the cab hadn’t arrived, it might not have been discreet for much longer, either.

He drops the right quantity of bills on the driver – tip included – and takes off after Kat, who is casting him come-hither glances over her shoulder and swaying her hips in an astonishingly sexy fashion. He crowds her once they’re in the elevator, pressing her into the wall with his body and kissing that certain spot below her ear which will send her mewing for real. By the time the elevator decants them at her floor, she’s lax and curved into him and not laughing at all any more.

“Miaow, kitten? That’s your only word?”

“Mmmmm.” She smiles, sensuously, with an attitude of _why not_?

Castle revises his plans and smiles back in the manner of a well-fed tiger. “Okay, kitten, miaow it is. That’s all you’re allowed to say. Just remember that this was your idea.” He slides down the zip of her dress and lets it fall from her shoulders to the floor. Then he stops hard and looks closely at what little she’s still wearing.

“I just bought you that!” falls out of his mouth. Though, as he’s trying not to swallow his tongue or drip drool down his shirt, it _does_ explain the lack of stock when he’d gone shopping. Beckett chokes. “I must have gone shopping shortly after you did. No wonder it was all gone.” Beckett gives up, collapses in laughter against him, and squeaks gently for a while.

“Shall we compare notes, Castle?” she finally emits, when her gales of giggles have subsided. “Maybe next time you should – oh, I don’t know – maybe tell me that you’re planning to increase my wardrobe?”

Castle tries very hard to recover his game.

“You told me lies, Beckett. You said you were grocery shopping. That doesn’t look like groceries to me. I approve of your taste, though. It exactly matches mine.” She quirks an eyebrow. “If you insist on wearing underwear when we’re out, then I’m going to choose it.” There is a noise that might be a choked off snicker.

“Like you just didn’t? When were you going to present me with it?”

“Soon. I was going to surprise you,” Castle says, plaintively. “I was hardly going to bring it with me when my mother and daughter were watching, was I?”

“No,” Beckett agrees, abruptly sobered. He runs a hand up and down her back, reassuringly.

“No.” He tips her face up and drops a kiss lightly on her lips. It’s followed rapidly by a much deeper, harder investigation of her mouth. “I was going to drop it off before I came to the Twelfth tomorrow. _After_ my family had gone out. Or in my mother’s case, before she woke up.”

Beckett grins mischievously and very seductively. There’s no kitten now, only a very adult feline.

“You could come and see what I bought. Make sure you haven’t duplicated it all.” Her hips sway enticingly as she sashays to the bedroom door.

“If I have I’ll just take it back and change it,” Castle shrugs, unbothered by the prospect.

“Take it back, sure. I’ve got plenty. I don’t need more.”

“Uh-uh. I’m going to choose your underwear, kitten.” He catches up and catches her in.   “But right now I’m going to choose to kiss you.” He exerts a little force, turns her and kisses her a little roughly, knots his hand into her hair to open her for his mouth on her throat, around her jaw. She slithers bonelessly slightly downward and rolls against him. His other hand closes over her rear and presses her hard in. She fits perfectly right where she should, in her heels and ashes-of-roses silk underwear, and right now he doesn’t want any games, no kitten, simply her and him and them.

Sometimes, he likes mostly-plain vanilla, and now has become one of those times, made so in surprise and humour and laughter and loving and love – Oh. He thought _what_ now? This is not a good way to hit that thought. He’s thought that immediately twice before, and it hasn’t ended well. Both times he’d rushed straight into it and it had been a disaster. Not this time. He doesn’t want this to be a disaster; he doesn’t want to move too fast and find he’s wrong. (He’s not wrong.) _Take it easy, Rick. Don’t push – Beckett, or yourself. Let it grow naturally_. Maybe that’s where the ridiculous urge to be wholly over-protective is coming from. _Slow down_.

He kisses her deep and slow and sure, bringing her hands up round his neck and loosening his grip to flick his own shirt buttons open, pulling her back in, skin to skin. She curves against him, opening for him to search her mouth, curling a long smooth leg around his waist. He doesn’t stop kissing her for an instant as he lifts her and carries her, wrapped around him, to lay her out on her bed and simply look at her while he gets rid of all irrelevant extras, such as the majority of his clothing.

He’d been a little unsure of the dull, grey-pink colour when he’d bought it, but it’s gorgeous: not itself demanding attention but drawing the eye to the excellence of shape and form it frames, thin silk and delicate lace almost-fragile over translucent skin and slim body, caressing the curves and swell of hips and breasts. It matches the almost-fragility of the off-duty Kat, such a contrast to the on-duty Beckett with shield, gun, and driving alpha personality: never fragile at all.

She’s looking up at him looking down at her, peaceful, almost passive: a slight enigmatic smile on her lips that he simply has to kiss away, desperate for her to be his, and in his arms, and never, ever, to let her leave him. But he mustn’t be that impulsive. She’s so easily spooked, and so uncertain, and so very fragile outside the job. Wild, headstrong declarations, however truthful he believes or even knows them to be, will not impress a woman for whom the careful uncovering of motivations and actions is her life’s blood, and who is pathologically disbelieving of pretty much everything she first hears or sees or encounters.

None of which stops him kissing her some more, rising over her to fall into the endless worlds of her mouth and the hills and valleys of her body, no bonds or restrictions or imprisonments; no toys or games.

No dreams.

Only the two of them, reality, and the simple act: although he’s taking the lead there is no overt domination here. It’s softer than he’s ever been with her, but she seems equally as content, responsive, and receptive: as long as he leads then she can’t fail. That suits him very well: he’ll lead her to him. Always and only him, and by the time they’ve walked that road she’ll see it too.

He kisses her much more assertively, touches her with forceful intent, and she arches into him for him to strip her of the delicate silk scraps, accepts his kisses and his touching and pulls him into her; smaller, elegant hands biting into his shoulders as he takes her first with fingers and then with body: still no games, and she moans and cries his name and comes only a short movement ahead of him.

“I ought to go home,” he says, a while later, cuddled around her and playing idly with a wisp of her hair.

“Mmmm.” She sounds most of the way to asleep. He carefully unlocks the necklace, and puts it out of the way.

“See you tomorrow?”

“Mmmm.” An eye opens and gazes sleepily at him. “Paperwork. If you like.” It closes again, and the rest of his Beckett snuggles back down against him.

“Not if it’s paperwork.”

“ ‘Kay then.”

Some more time passes, quietly cuddled together.

“I need to go home.” There’s a mildly unhappy noise. It might translate to _don’t want you to_. It might equally translate to _if you must_. Or _okay then._ But as long as it’s unhappy at the prospect of his leaving, then everything’s okay.

It’s only when he gets home that he realises that he still hasn’t seen what she bought. He grins widely. That’ll be fun, another evening.


	30. Killing time

Monday morning sees Beckett back in the bullpen, fully restored to health and more relaxed than in some weeks. It’s fair to say that she is her entirely normal, alpha self, and is exceedingly and – for Beckett, which is to say that she emits at least two sentences on the subject – volubly unimpressed that there are no interesting murders and indeed nothing interesting at all. There is a week’s paperwork, which has not been improved by a few indicative scrawls and more than a few coffee stains from Ryan and Esposito.

“What’s all this?” she asks, gesturing irritably.

“Your paperwork. You closed the kidnap case, so you get to write it up.”

“Thanks,” she says, a little bitterly, and turns to it. “See if I help you out when you’re next ill.”

“I’m never ill,” Esposito points out smugly. “Not like Ryan here, who spends a week in bed for a headache. Wuss.” Ryan aims a punch.

“Do not,” he protests. “It was the flu.”

“Yeah, right. Beckett had the flu. You had a sniffle.”

“How come she gets to have the flu and you write me off as a sniffle? ‘S not fair. I was just as ill.”

“Couldn’t have been anything less. She couldn’t stand up straight and got sent home. Surprised she’s here at all. If she’s so ill she can’t come to work, she must be dead.”

“Sitting right here, Espo.” Espo subsides at her glare.

The glare, at normal full, Klieg light wattage, has the effect Beckett wanted: the boys back off. She notes with some pleasure (and a little, unacknowledged, relief) that she’s as much in charge as she ever was. She can have both: her normal self at work and her strange Kat alter-ego in private. She turns to the paperwork, and despite the scrawls and stains it’s swiftly tamed and despatched. She’s never seen the point of letting it hang around: it probably breeds if given half a chance.

At shift-end she decamps in short order. She hasn’t been able to touch her mother’s case in well over a week, being laid low by illness and then kept very much otherwise occupied by Castle. Now she’s healthy and she’s alone and it’s time to get back to it. Being back at work, back to Beckett-normal, not being distracted from an old addiction by a new one, has resurrected the need to solve cases, and if she hasn’t got a new case, then she knows exactly where to find an older one. She’s been itching to chase it down all day, ever since she woke up alone and realised that she’d be in the precinct, Castle would not be there to notice anything…unusual, and she’d be only a short distance from the Archives.

It’s not one addiction or the other, now. It’s both. Tonight, one addiction is quiescent, sated by four full days of glorious absorption in each other. The other has free rein, and soon, dinner taken at the nearest cafe and coffee at hand, she’s deep in the details, searching for any small clue or hint which she might have missed in each and every previous time that she’s reviewed these papers.

She’s so deep in the mire that she doesn’t notice for one single second that Castle hasn’t contacted her all day, and wouldn’t have been upset even if she had.

* * *

At home, following an extremely productive day and smug in the knowledge that he has avoided an undoubtedly enormous pile of paperwork at the precinct, Castle is contemplating Clark Murray’s visit with moderate satisfaction, even if Clark has taken a ridiculously long time to get back to him. He’d first contacted him – he thinks back – wow! Nearly seven weeks ago? And followed up nearly two weeks ago? It may be summer in the city, but there can’t be that many corpses, surely? He’d let that run for far too long. Oh. Because they’d been… not together. But now they are. These last few days have certainly achieved that.

He contemplates his mother’s interference and sanctimonious statements about his actions with a good deal less satisfaction. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. If even Ryan and Esposito think it would be a good plan to look into Beckett’s mother’s death and help her solve the case, then it’s a good plan. They know Beckett far better than his mother does.

Both thoughts are knocked completely out of his head by Alexis bouncing in, bubbling blissfully about – an invite to a _dance_? With a _boy_? _What_? No. No no no no _no_! She’s his little girl. She’s barely out of onesies. She’s not old enough to go to dances with _boys_. She should still be thinking that boys have cooties. No boys. None. Nasty hulking creatures who shouldn’t be allowed near his delicate little girl. No boys. Absolutely none.

Five minutes later Alexis is not only going to the dance but Castle’s credit card is going dress shopping. Accessories included. With Alexis, which would be fine, and his mother, which is not. He hopes that neither of them remember Beckett’s comments about emeralds suiting Alexis, because if they do that’s his Nikki Heat advance down the designer drain. He doesn’t begrudge the money. Really. But – _boys_? For once he’s faster to drain his wine than his mother. _Boys_? He scans his head for signs of grey hair and is reassured by his normal, ruggedly handsome face and absence of grey hair. The presence of a look of abject terror is not flattering, however. _Boys_?

He’s so appalled by the prospect of _boys_ that he doesn’t even consider going to see Beckett.

* * *

The next morning he’s still muttering darkly about _boys_. The team won’t run this Owen youth for him, and how’s he supposed to look after his daughter in the face of _boys_ if the police won’t even help? Still, the case is interesting. Murder by suffocation, preceded by torture. _And_ he was a surgeon. Three for three, really. It almost takes his mind off that _boy_.

The subsequent interview takes his mind off the boy completely. That poor woman, completely devastated. She’s had a week of complete uncertainty when she hadn’t the slightest idea what had happened to her fiancé, and now all she knows is that he’s been killed, but not by whom. It must be awful. All the fiancée has is the very inadequate consolation that she’s got the best team in the city on it.

His mind drifts a little. The immediate pain on this woman’s face has hit him harder than normal: he’s seen it in nearly every case that he’s been on but today it bites more sharply. Maybe it’s because Clark is looking into Beckett’s case, and once upon a time (maybe still?) Beckett has no answers for why, or who. Had she had this same clawingly vicious uncertainty over her mother’s death? She never really mentions it – never mentions it, except for that one late night after a frozen corpse. Maybe he should test the water, dip an investigative toe into the pool of Beckett’s opinions, see if she’s open to suggestions.

They’ve almost made it to the dead surgeon’s office before Castle has worked out how to open the subject. Beckett – very Beckett, very focused, very fully alpha, and notably unstressed – is taking fast strides towards her goal: anything that might help her solve the case. Homicide is serious, and she takes it seriously, but this is full forward momentum in a way he’s not sure he’s really understood before: a knowledge that this is her vocation and she enjoys being good at it. This is the cop she always is: confident; strong; fiercely focused. In fact, this is how she has always been in public. It’s just that, for once, there is much less of an underlay of bitter tension and unhappy stress. It seems like a good time and place to begin.

“Hey, can I ask you something?”

“Since when do you ask permission to ask questions?” But she’s not suspicious, simply Beckett-normal irritated, just as she always is when he asks her questions.

“It's about your mother's case.” She stops walking. Her eyes slice upward, cold and sharp as steel when she turns towards him. Or, possibly, turns on him.

“Have you ever thought about... reopening it?”

“What are you doing?” Now there is definite suspicion, crawling spider-like over her face, pulling her mouth tight, hunching her shoulders inward. Defensive, protective, curling into herself, exactly as he’s seen her do at home in her bed, turned back sealing her off from the world.

“Nothing. I just thought if we worked together…”

“No.” Her voice is as hard and sharp as her eyes. That’s a complete shut-down, locking him out of her head in one word.

“I have resources.” _I can help you, Beckett. I want to._    He trails the bait in front of her, trying to appeal to her investigative instincts.

“Castle, you touch my mom's case, and you and I are done. Do you understand?”

“Okay.” She moves off again. He concedes the point, but not the game. “Why don't you want to investigate it?”

She stops walking and faces him again: another hard shut-down, with the reinforced grilles slamming closed. In that moment, she seems as far away from him as she’s ever been, right from the moment she wasn’t there when he woke in the club, six months ago. Her muscles are tight, and her eyes bitter.

“Same reason a recovering alcoholic doesn't drink. You don't think I haven't been down there? You don't think I haven't memorized every line in that file? My first three years on the force, every off-duty moment was spent looking for something someone missed. It took me a year of therapy to realize if I didn't let it go, it was going to destroy me. And so I let it go.”

She lies barefaced, as she’s done so often to Montgomery. She’s never let it go, only covered it up or squashed it down for a while. This is not his business, nor his concern. It’s her case, her addiction. As with her _other_ addiction, to Castle’s own particular brand of arousal, it’s entirely private. In this case, private from absolutely everyone, to prevent them realising that she’s a continuing failure.

She can’t afford to fail. She can’t afford for anyone to know that she’s a failure. Because if they do, she might just fall.

She walks away, into the elevator, not connected to him at all. The mental link they’ve become used to sharing has snapped. Another try, another hard stop. He wants to explain why it matters so much to him, but this is not the place, and the middle of an active investigation is not the time. He reminds himself not to dive headfirst in.

“Sorry. I didn't know.”

“Yeah, well, now you do.”

That did not precisely go well, Castle thinks. And now she’s at least as tense as she had not been a moment ago, and it is definitely time to drop this topic. It might be sensible to revisit the situation with Ryan and Espo, because he hadn’t quite expected that reaction.

Yes. Beer with the boys, just to check that he’s still on the right lines. Unless, of course, he gets a better offer, but right now it’s not looking like it and he’s not inclined to push so soon after alpha-Beckett has shut him down _hard_. No point in inviting instant rejection, and she’s not quite tense enough to be forced to admit her need. There is no need for him in her, just now. Still, he is concerned by her reaction. He’d thought he knew her; thought that the last few days, since she’d been ill, had given him an insight into how she thinks. She has, after all, let him see her innermost desires, stripped off her mask. This… was unexpected. He wonders, a little nervously, if he knows her as well as he thinks he does.

He shrugs off the momentary uncertainty. He’ll just wait and see what Clark turns up, and have a chat with the boys.

In other matters, he thinks much more happily, if nothing else in the way of murder turns up to distract them, when this case is over it’ll be a good time to go dancing. Something ostensibly normal: the trappings of – oh. A full-scale relationship. Oh. That’s…actually, that’s _not_ unexpected. Now he thinks about it, it’s right. He’s been slipping into it, by fits and starts and each other’s flaring tempers and quarrels and illnesses: he’s been slipping into it for weeks; and he’d thought only on Sunday that he was diving headfirst, headlong into something that looked a lot like falling in love.   It’s strange, twisted, _different_ and complicated; definitely not for public consumption – but it feels _right_ in a way that he isn’t sure any other relationship has ever been. The alpha to his beta and then the beta to his alpha… mixed up, mixed around and still _right_ , either way. Another good reason to take this slowly and carefully.

The dead surgeon’s office is… well, weird. Or possibly that’s the patient information. Beckett cringes internally and wonders very privately how people can be so dissatisfied with their lives that they try to correct it by going in for repeated surgery. If they were jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge – now that she could understand. She shivers. She’s not in that place any more. She stepped back. Or was pulled back. It’s not relevant now.

She stepped back.

* * *

Interviewing plasticised women does not help her advance the case. Talking to her Captain does not help her advance the case. Ryan and Esposito doing grunt work is satisfying – that’ll teach them not to leave all her paperwork till she recovers when she’s ill if there are no new cases – but it still does not help her advance the case.

And Castle is still wailing about his baby girl going out with a boy. If he’d said Hannibal Lecter he’d have put less horror into it – probably. She meditates telling him what she was like at fifteen: livewire and rebellious, boys and leather and later – not much later – a motorbike and a temporary tattoo. (She wasn’t that rebellious. Or reckless.) When she’d been brave and beautiful and blazing with life and the whole world was out there for her to explore and conquer. When she’d intended to be the first female Chief Justice and set the world to rights.

When she’d had a mother. When she’d been successful. When she didn’t fail. When she never, ever thought that, ten years on, she’d still be looking everywhere for answers, until she started looking for them over the rail of the bridge. Until she stepped back, but kept looking.

She doesn’t think she’ll tell him anything about her past. It’s not relevant. When she’s with him, in their strange, fucked-up, ass-backwards _association_ , then, only then, she doesn’t feel as if she’s failing her mother. She doesn’t feel as if she’s failing anyone, not even herself. No point in dragging up her failures all over again.

She goes home, and seeks success until her eyes close over the papers and photos and reports: finding only failure.

In the morning the boys have found a lead, and Castle finds the thread to pull. Not that this helps, either. The US Attorney? And she is _not_ _interested_ in how he’s going to haze Alexis’s date. Though if he carries on about it, she might give Alexis some tips on how to worry her father in revenge.

The US Attorney. Not at all helpful. The boys go home, and she works on. She sends Castle home when the boys go, and though it looks for an instant as if he might call her on what she’s planning: a long night working, he doesn’t. Tonight, she’s looking to avert failure for a different family.

It doesn’t work.

Her apartment is quiet, and calm, and cool. Soothing, as is her neutral décor, neutral colours, neutral bed linen. The drawer on the nightstand stays shut fast. She thinks about going out running, but rejects it. She draws a bath, soft with bubbles and scents, and drifts dreamily within it for a while, draining her stress with the water; slips into soft, undemanding cotton pyjamas and into her smooth sheets. Cream sheets, carrying no pattern or memories or stimulation, only clean and monochrome. No hint of death or blood or murder in this room, only solitary serenity.

She very carefully doesn’t think about calling Castle, even when she opens the drawer and runs the collar through her hands, over and over, the delicate filigree and rhinestones sparkling in the soft sidelight. The case comes first. _Which_ case is also very carefully left unspecified. She has to be herself to work on the cases: she can’t afford to slip, she can’t afford to be anything other than her precinct self, all the time she’s got a live one.

She can’t afford to fail.

* * *

Castle, having followed Ryan and Esposito out, remembers that he wanted to check with them that setting Clark on Beckett’s case is still a good idea.

“Hey, guys. Wanna beer?”

“Sure.”

They get most of the way to the Old Haunt – being a long way from anywhere that other cops might congregate, and not a place of which Beckett is aware – before anyone feels the need to break the companionable male silence.

“What’s this about, Castle?”

“Do I need a reason to have a beer with you?”

“Yeah. C’mon, spill. D’you want us to stalk this date? Give the kid the talk?”

Castle grins appreciatively. “Might not be a bad backup plan, but I think I can do it myself. Though – can I borrow your gun, just to leave out on the table?”

“You don’t have one of your own? Call yourself a man?”

“I call myself sensible, with a child around. Even if a gun were in a safe, I’d never have been sure she couldn’t get at it. I’d rather be paranoid than that.” The boys nod. They’ve seen the fall out when it all goes wrong.

“Fair enough. We’re not parents.”

“So if you don’t need help beatin’ up on your daughter’s date, whaddya want?”

Castle shuffles a little uncomfortably.

“You know you got me into the files, and I got my pathologist friend to take a look, and we all agreed it was a good idea – well, are we still sure about that?”

“Huh?”

“I asked Beckett if she would re-open it, and she cut me off at the knees. She said she’d let it go.”

Both cops look distinctly sceptical.

“Don’t believe that,” Espo says. “But she don’t know you wouldn’t tattle to Montgomery.”

“We do,” Ryan says hastily, in the face of Castle’s sudden scowl. “If you tattled you’d never get back in the precinct.”

“Yeah,” growls Esposito. “ ‘Cause they’d never find your body.” Castle’s face darkens further. “Okay, bro. You wouldn’t. Got it.”

“I just wondered – are we sure we should be doing this? If she’s that tense about it?”

Both men consider for the length of a bottle of beer.

“Yeah,” Espo eventually says. “Whatever she says out loud, she wants answers. If she din’t, she wouldn’t still be looking herself.”

“You really think she is?”

“Sure she is. She just ain’t admittin’ to it. An’ before she went sick she was behavin’ just like she used to before Ryan here showed up, workin’ her ass off an’ never goin’ home. I dunno how she’s doin’ it, but she is.”

“She’s doing it again on this case. Sent us all off, but I bet if you” – Castle raises an eyebrow at Ryan’s pointed stare – “went back to the bullpen now she’d still be there.” Castle declines that bait, and orders more beer.

“So you think we should carry on?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Ryan?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay then. I’ll keep prodding.”

The evening turns to more beer, and pool, and eventually breaks up after Castle has been subjected to another round of ragging on the subject of teen boys, protective fathers, and all the evils that can afflict a teen girl. He goes home, without investigating the bullpen, and considers Valium for his present anxiety and a full-scale security detail for Alexis.


	31. The dying of the light

In the morning Beckett runs to the precinct, needing the physical stretch and burn, showers there and is at her desk early, hoping for co-operation from the US Attorney. She scores a meeting – unusual in itself – but not the prize. No information, no dice, no deals. She stomps out, for once visibly infuriated, Castle following, and stops on the street, struggling to control her wrath.

A few brief exchanges later, Castle is on his way to meet a friend – and how _exactly_ does an author make friends with a mobster? – and Beckett is on her way back to the bullpen, no less furious with the lack of interagency co-operation and getting more stressed by the instant. Her victim deserves justice and she is going to see that he gets it. US Attorneys or not.

She counts each second, begrudging every wasted moment that she has to wait, until Castle returns with an answer. It’s a good lead, but it’s not enough on its own. There is only one solution occurring to her over-strained need to solve this faster, sooner, just _better_ so that she isn’t failing. It’s the third day already, and her victim had been dead a week when he was found. She has to solve this. It’s taking too long. Much to Castle’s distaste, which is not nearly well-enough hidden, she calls Will for some help.

And she gets it.

Will might have been helpful, but the mob witness, Jimmy the Rat (which he closely resembles) is a complete washout.   Beckett’s stress levels reach stratospheric heights, but she rams it all back into a box and just about manages to preserve her normal calm in the face of the news that the Rat now won’t – well, rat – on his verminous pals thanks to her efforts to solve the case.

A failure. Not only can she not solve her case, she’s fucked up a much bigger one. It’s never collapsed around her like this before. She’s never failed like this before – herself, her team, the victim, and the other agency too. She sits at her desk and tries not to think about that. She’ll deal with it later. Right now, she needs to find another way around. She can’t keep failing. She forces that thought away, too. Later, she’ll go running, or punch the speed bag, or both. She can’t take the other route just yet. When they’ve closed the case, she can do that. Till then, she needs to be Detective Beckett. They agreed it – he – would never interfere with the job.

When Montgomery pokes his head out she’s reviewing everything she knows, every line of enquiry, every possible clue. The expression on his face is anything but encouraging, and she knows she’s about to be ripped a new one for screwing up the Federal investigation. That’ll be a black mark on her record that’ll never come off, as if her life isn’t dark enough. It can make friends with the black hole of never solving her mother’s case, which Castle’s careless words has brought right back to her, and not solving this one. Life can’t really get much worse.

Life can get worse. Thanks to her efforts to solve the case, the Rat and, much worse, Will, were shot, and they’re both in hospital. Naturally, the criminal came off better than the Fed. Castle’s producing platitude after platitude and, though she knows he’s trying to make her feel better, right now she doesn’t need that. It doesn’t help. Down where he and the boys can’t see it, she’s drowning in guilt. Sure, she’s extraordinary. She’s an extraordinary, fucked-up failure. She sends them all home, and keeps staring at the machines around Will as the night falls around her and the darkness falls within her.

Someone must have followed them. Someone must have known. Round and round, the thoughts in her head circling like the hands of the hospital clock, the nurses and orderlies flicking past, barely noticed.

Barely noticed. Just like – oh my God. Just like at the clinic. That’s how it was done. She’s out the door in an instant, on her way to the precinct and her murder board. Two hours of hard work later, she calls the boys. Later, Castle shows up. Still later, they set up the sting, back in the hospital. And not much later after that, they have their killer, and the Feds have not one, but two, stool pigeons.

Success.

She goes back to the hospital, to give Will the good news. They’re comfortably celebratory in a cop-like way, when Castle pops his head round the door. Will, naturally, takes the opportunity to get in a couple of hits, which is entirely unnecessary and unhelpful. Still, let’s all part friends. She says goodbye and follows Castle out into the corridor, expectantly. She’s opening her mouth on a carefully constructed sentence about her preference for gold over silver when he starts to speak.

She’s expecting an invitation. She is not expecting what he actually says.

“It’s about your mother,” Castle says, gesturing her to sit down. She doesn’t.

“About my mother,” Beckett repeats, flatly.

“Yeah. We found something.” He comes closer.

“We?” She realises that sometime in the last minute or so Esposito and Ryan have come up and are flanking Castle. “All three of you?”

“Yes. We _found_ something for you, Beckett. Don’t you want to know what we found?” He sounds as if he’s giving her the greatest present ever, and waggles a sheaf of paper enticingly. She doesn’t extend a hand to take it.

“C’mon, Beckett. Show and tell time. You’ll want to know this.” Ryan sounds equally enthusiastic.

“It was a pro, Beckett. All the wounds were so much window-dressing.” That’s Esposito, in full let’s-attack-this-case mode, all wound up and ready to go.

“Covering up.” Ryan, again. He sounds as gung-ho as Espo.

“If it’s a pro we can look for similar cases and see which suspects cross-match. We might find him.” Espo again, unusually keen to start on a desk based piece of work.

Three identically happy, hopeful expressions look back at her. But all she can see is the darkness of public failure opening up in front of her and reaching out to suck her back in: a tar pit luring her. She may fall into the abyss, she may _already_ have fallen into the arms of Abbadon, but she won’t take them down with her. More, she won’t expose her father to any thread to which he might cling. He’s still damaged, still weak, still like to founder on the rocks of some new hope, which will likely never come to pass.

Once, she had had dreams, broken on a sordid death in a back alley. Lately, she’s been sleepwalking through another dream. It’s just about to break on that same sordid death.

“You shouldn’t have looked into it,” she says, quietly. They had no right. This is not their case, and they hadn’t even told her they were looking, still less asked her to join them. It was _her_ mother, and they didn’t bring her in. A small sore place opens in her chest. That’s how much of a failure she’s been. Even her team don’t think she can do it. Which is, she thinks, perfectly reasonable. Because they found something, and she – did not.

“But we _found_ something,” they say in triple stereo. There’s a chilly silence while that hits the floor and doesn’t bounce. It is gradually becoming apparent to all three men that Beckett is not greeting their news with fireworks and celebration. She is, in fact, rather horribly controlled and calm. There is no indication whatsoever that this is welcome news.

Beckett stares at the three men: no anger, no enthusiasm, nothing but a calm, chill shell. Her eyes and voice, after a brief flicker of hurt surprise on Castle’s opening words, have become totally neutral: as if she’s about to interrogate a potentially hostile witness. When she eventually speaks again, after a cold, terrifyingly empty silence, she gazes first not at Castle but at Esposito.

“I thought you had my back.” It’s all she says. It’s all she has to say, to show him that she’s realised that he didn’t believe in her enough to tell her what they were doing. Esposito flinches, a flash of emotion flickering across his swarthy face. He looks as if some desert sniper had sent a bullet into him: point perfect. Beckett dismisses him from her attention and turns to Ryan, who is already pale. She runs a hard gaze from his face to his feet and back again, and says nothing, dismissing him too. Finally she returns her eyes to Castle, still bracketed by the two cops.

“You haven’t been here long enough to understand what you’ve done.”

Her gaze ranges over the three of them. “I’m sure you all thought your motives were good. I’m sure you meant well.” The implied _but you have completely fucked up_ rings plangently between them all: the three men ranged opposite Beckett, on different sides of a war they didn’t know they were fighting.

“I don’t want any of you to touch this case. It’s cold, and it’s closed. We have enough to do without taking on old cases. If you do anything further with it, I’ll report you myself. Give me the papers. I’ll dispose of them.” Castle could not have refused if it would have killed him. He extends the bundle of documents, and she takes them in her fingertips, as if firm contact with the paper would burn her. She is extraordinarily careful not to touch his fingers in any way.

Beckett turns away, no expression in face or posture. No further comment is made, nor is it necessary. Medusa could not more effectively have petrified them. She is gone before anyone recovers breath.

“That…did not go so well,” Castle manages. No-one answers. Esposito looks as if he’s seen his best friend die in front of him. Ryan looks guilty and unhappy, and Castle himself feels sick with the magnitude of the error the three of them have made. They had _meant well_. They have achieved only ill.

And the very worst part is that she didn’t lose her temper. All she showed them was dispassionate, unemotional, mild disappointment. Ryan had said: _She’s never fazed. Never seen her lose it._ His own thoughts, further back before that evening: _she never loses her cool or her composure_. And Esposito: _We’d been tight coupla years. Shit hot, too_. Castle somehow doubts that right at this moment they are tight. None of them will be tight with Beckett. He feels more nauseous. He is quite certain that Beckett will be running straight into the dark and the monsters by the end of the day. (And it won’t be his particular darkness. Oh no.) Another, later, fragment of Esposito’s illuminating commentary returns to his mind: _Cool as c’n be, all the time. Got to blow out somewhere._ It had been with him…

“Now what?” Ryan asks, but he’s staring at the floor as if the scratched hospital linoleum can tell him how to mend matters.

“Dunno,” Esposito mutters, and then louder, “We only wanted to help.”

“Maybe we shoulda asked her if she wanted help,” Ryan blurts miserably.

“Maybe we shoulda left it alone.”

Castle is noticeably not saying anything at all. He has acquired an unpleasant greenish undertone to his complexion, and he still feels very sick.

“This is my fault,” he grates out.

“How come?”

“I wanted the story, and I wanted to help, and I convinced you both. We knew she wouldn’t like it.”

“ ‘S not just on you, Castle. We coulda stopped it. We all agreed, twice over. I shoulda stopped us. I know her best.”

_I don’t think so, Espo. I really do not think so. I should have known._

They stand there, all three of them, for another few moments; in thin, shell-shocked silence.

“You think she’ll be…” there’s a gaping pause while Ryan tries to find any word which will adequately convey his meaning… “okay ‘bout us?” He’s looking at Esposito.

“Whaddya mean?”

“She wouldn’t… change the team, would she?” Ryan rushes out. Espo looks utterly horrified at Ryan’s comment.

“No.” But he doesn’t sound certain at all. “She wouldn’t. We’re tight.”

“We _were_ tight,” Ryan corrects. “You wanna bet on that right now?”

Castle’s nausea resurges, acidly burning in his throat. If he’s broken their team… His guilt chokes him.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats. “I’d better go.”

“Castle. This isn’t just on you. Took all of us to get into this clusterfuck. Don’t go awol on us now, bro. We’re all in this.”

Esposito’s understanding, and Ryan’s, don’t make him feel any better at all. He starts to walk the couple of miles from the hospital to home, hoping that it will allow him to think of some way to mend matters.

It doesn’t work. He has no more idea what to do when he unlocks his front door than he did when he was standing outside the hospital ward watching his best hope of a future dismissing him as a shallow blow-in who _hadn’t been there long enough to understand_.

Why had he ever thought that investigating her case would be a good idea? He’d _known_ she wouldn’t like it. But now they’ve been and gone and done it – he’d been and gone and instigated it, whatever Ryan or Esposito says – and he has to deal with the fall out.

One point jabs its way to the forefront of his so-far useless thinking. He has to make sure that this doesn’t break the team. He has to explain to Beckett that it wasn’t the boys who thought up this idea. After that, he has to explain his own starring role in this total fuck-up, which might be difficult, since he himself doesn’t understand his motives.

He had better try to understand, before he goes anywhere.

Castle, after much soul-searching which has taken him precisely no further, has arrived at Beckett’s apartment to try to explain, or at least to try to pull the boys out this disaster. He knocks with trepidation, heavily diluted by sheer terror. He doesn’t dare try to use the key he carries. He is already sure that the next few minutes are not going to be pleasant.

His mood turns from partial to outright terror when there is no answer, and when he calls her cell it goes only to voicemail. He can’t hear the phone ringing, which convinces him that neither Beckett nor her phone is there. She might be out running. She might be down under FDR Drive again. Most horribly, she might have gone back to where they first met. His breath comes harder and faster, and he has to stop himself trying to wrench the door handle into a twisted mess. She can’t do that. She couldn’t find someone else. She’s _not allowed_ to find anyone else.

He has no right to allow or not allow her to do anything, as of this morning. No right to enter her apartment. She’d simply – written him off as too new to understand anything. And then she’d simply walked away from all of them: no temper, no upset. Total lockdown. _Got to blow out somewhere_. Just – please don’t let somewhere be back in the club. _Please, Beckett. Kate. Kat. Kitten. Please don’t go down into the dark with someone else_.

Once the thought that she might find another has entered his brain, he can’t get rid of it. He’d persuaded her into accepting that side of her particular bent – so there’s nothing stopping her indulging it with anyone she chooses. He can’t bear the thought that someone else might be putting their mark on her, touching her – owning her. Surely she wouldn’t? Surely?

He slumps against her door, miserably jealous of a phantom which he isn’t even sure exists, utterly devastated by the thought that she might not be _his_ any more: that she might not be his ever again, when he’d started to hope for forever. He turns and flees the clawing nightmare, directly to his loft, desperately resisting the temptation to go straight to the club and make sure she isn’t there. That can only make matters worse, never better. If she’s not there, he’s no happier. If she is… if she is, he can’t bear to know it.

* * *

Beckett is running. She’d gone back to the precinct, exchanged compliments and the story of the resolution of the case with Montgomery, and been firmly told to take the remainder of the day and have a rest. He’ll be telling the others the same. Since that was just what she wanted – time out – she didn’t argue.

She had changed to running clothes much earlier, but didn’t leave then. Instead, she worked through her yoga forms, trying to recover stability. After a long, slow workout demanding total concentration and control, twilight had begun to draw in close, the evening dark beginning to call her. Then, she had left, into the gathering gloom, the knowledge that the comforting dark would soon surround her.

So now she’s running: hard-driving muscle, long strides, searching for exhaustion to flush away the bitter sting of betrayal and failure. Since she’s officially – and ordered to be – off duty, her phone is switched to silent, not even vibrate; but her gun and shield are obvious upon her hip. She doesn’t want to talk, but running like this without defences would be stupid. She’s been close enough to stupid, lately, she doesn’t need to take any more chances.

She needs her coping mechanism to kick in and carry her over the shockwave of her team lining up against her, investigating her case without trusting her to be part of that team – because she’d failed, and they didn’t need a _failure_ helping – and into the calm, safe, unemotional water beyond. She only needs a quiet evening, alone, to rationalise it all; and then none of them will ever refer to it again: the team will be intact. None of this will ever have happened. It will all be okay, when she’s been through her coping mechanisms: running, sparring, hot baths and cool sheets, calm, unemotional behaviour. It’ll all be okay tomorrow, as if it had never been, by Monday it will be gone.

The previous three months have all been a dream, only a dream, and now she’s woken to the reality that no-one is really on her side: none of them believe she can succeed with this case – her case. Castle hadn’t believed in her enough to tell her, approached it side on, let her shut him down, and then decided that since she’d failed they’d not bother telling her that they were trying a new route to success. He’d demanded she trust him to keep her secrets – but he hadn’t returned the compliment with his. _Never take a stranger’s advice; never let a friend fool you twice. Nobody’s on nobody’s side_. The song rings through her head.   He’d been no more than a stranger, not even a friend. _Never lose your heart, use your head_. Too late.

With every stride she takes, the shards of her shattered dreams slice her feet bloody, and every step is agony as she crushes the dreams of success and of protection into sand.

She runs till she can’t run any further: stretches to cool down and, not far from home, trudges slowly the last few yards. The … mementoes… at home can be hidden away. Nor, now, are there like to be any more. Only peace, and quiet, in her graveyard of the dreams that she’d once had. Just another dead dream, buried. Mourn, and move on. Return to the silence that’s always served her so well.

She doesn’t understand how Esposito had ever let this go ahead. She doesn’t understand how, or why, when he’s always had her back, he had suddenly gone right off the reservation. She doesn’t understand how, or why, Ryan, who’s always been sensible and empathetic, went along with it. And she has no clue at all how, or why, Castle got into the middle of it. She doesn’t understand how they had spotted her failure, when she’d hidden her addiction so well. Maybe they’d simply thought she’d given up, on her _own mother’s_ murder.

But they have found something, and just like any other addict she needs the hit. She has the papers. She has the access. And now she has the means not to fail. She won’t drag the others into it, though. She’ll stand or fall on her own, and take the consequences on her own. They hadn’t trusted her to succeed, and now she doesn’t trust them to be involved. And more, when she’s doing this, she won’t need any other form of relief. She’d only been looking for it because she couldn’t stand her own failure. Well, now she won’t be failing. She’ll show them all she can succeed.

Everything else has only been a three-month dream, and now she’s finally woken up.

 


	32. The killing game

She wakes the next morning with the first thin layer of lacquer already varnished over her feelings: it will be enough for today, when she is off duty. Tomorrow will only involve paperwork and therefore need not involve… visitors. Even if Castle does show up, she can deal. Nothing to worry about, nothing to stress over. It was all simply a…misunderstanding.

She makes her way to the precinct at her normal, early, time the next day, and begins. When Esposito arrives, she greets him in exactly the way she would have done on Friday last, or any day before that since they started to operate as a team. Ryan, appearing shortly afterward, receives the same treatment. There is not an ounce of constraint or irritation or difference in Beckett’s voice, demeanour, or enthusiasm for seeing them.

“Your paperwork is on your desks, boys,” she jibes gently. “Enjoy.” The boys, after one brief, incredulous look at each other, sit down and prepare for a tedious day. Beckett returns to sucking the end of her pen and tapping on her keyboard as she deals with the necessary reports and forms, punctuated by long draughts from her coffee mug. It’s coffee from the espresso machine in the break room. There’s no reason to poison herself with the sludge from the old precinct machine if she doesn’t have to. Another coat of lacquer hardens and gleams, reflecting anything that might be… troublesome... away from her.

Everything is just as it was three days ago – and nothing is.

Ryan and Esposito go in search of their starter fuel of, respectively, white Americano and double espresso. The small necessities of life in progress, they’re free to express their collective disquiet at Beckett’s behaviour.

“I don’t get it,” Ryan says – quietly, in order for his words not to carry to Beckett. “It’s like none of Saturday ever happened.”

“Yeah,” Espo confirms. “I thought she’d be angry today. Thought maybe she’d be angry enough that the team was broken, like you said. But she ain’t. She ain’t anything she wasn’t a coupla days ago. Just like if it’s been a rough case.”

“Maybe she’s realised we wanted to help,” Ryan says hopefully.

“Yeah…” replies Esposito, but he doesn’t sound at all convinced. “I wish she’d blown up.” Ryan looks confused. “She’s gotta blow sometime. Lockin’ down all the time ain’t good for anyone.”

There’s a short pause while the first cups of coffee go down.

“Guess we’ll see more when Castle gets here,” Ryan says uncertainly. Esposito acquires an expression of considerable doubt.

“You think? I don’t.” Some small element of realisation dawns. “Castle looked pretty sick, after, for a man who’s only been around ten minutes.” They exchange glances. “What’s his game?”

Ryan shrugs. “ ‘S obvious. He thought he’d get into Beckett’s good books, an’ it didn’t work.” Espo is completely satisfied with that explanation. More coffee is acquired and they wander back to the paperwork. They don’t hurry. It’s not going anywhere.

Beckett remains, to the boys’ watchful but discreet surveillance, exactly as usual: cool, amused, and sardonic. The more normal she is, the less the boys like it. They like it even less when Castle arrives, later than usual and rather less polished.

“Hey,” he says, with an undertone of uncertainty. Beckett looks up and flashes a bright, socially acceptable smile which doesn’t make the boys any less tense and conveys nothing at all. Bit like her face, really. She looks perfectly, normally pleased to see Castle. The only indication of any tension at all is that her nails are digging into the pen.

“Hey, Castle. Come to help with the paperwork?”

“P…paperwork?” he stutters, nonplussed. “No…”

“Oh,” says Beckett, disappointedly. “Should’ve known that was too much to hope for.” She produces another bright smile. “Can you wave a magic wand and make it disappear?” There’s no answer. “Not that either. C’mon. Surely you’ve got an answer to paperwork?”

“I never do any. That’s what Gina and my attorney are for.”

“I don’t think that the NYPD are going to fund an editor or an attorney for each of us, Castle. City’s still broke, no matter what the Mayor does. Now, have you any good way of getting us out of paperwork?”

“No.” There’s a tiny pause. “Beckett, can we talk?”

“Since when have you asked permission to talk? Sure.” She turns to him. “What is it?”

“Come and get coffee. I’ll buy.”

“Yeah, you will. You’re the man with the multimillionaire tag.”

Castle is completely unable to get past Beckett’s normality. It’s as if the other day had never occurred. He’d think she’d been given a total memory wipe, if he didn’t know that it’s impossible. The memory wipe is undoubtedly possible. Applying it to Beckett is not. She’d have killed anyone who tried it. But she’s completely, totally, precinct-normal alpha Beckett. She precedes him to the elevator, precedes him out of the precinct door, and precedes him into the coffee shop, where she orders for both of them. She does let Castle pay. It’s all totally, terrifyingly normal.

Everything is just as it was three days ago. Except it’s not. Nothing is.

They sit down on opposite sides of a small table. Beckett’s sitting side on, so there’s no risk their knees bump.

“Okay, spill. What is it you want to talk about?”

“I wanted to apologise. About prying into the case. And tell you that it wasn’t Ryan and Espo’s fault. It was my idea.”

“It’s not a problem, Castle. You all had good intentions. You couldn’t have known. Let’s just forget the whole affair ever happened. No need to bring it up ever again.” He has a sudden sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. This does not sound like she only means her mother’s case. That wording can very easily be interpreted to mean _their_ affair – and he is certain that this is not accidental.

“You won’t break up the team?”

“Why would I do that?” She sounds absolutely astonished at the suggestion. “We’re the best homicide team in New York. I told you, no harm, no foul. We’re all good. All of it’s past. Forgotten.   You’ll keep shadowing us” – _us_? _Us? No, no, no. I shadow you –_ “unless you’re done, of course?”

“No.” _No, I’m not done. But you’re talking as if all the rest is done. All past and forgotten._ The sick gap in his gut gapes wider, but he can’t find a way to say what he means: _I’m still here for you, I still want you. I think I might love you_. He can’t ask if it’s over, because she might say _yes_.

“Well then. No issue.” She grins, normally. “But if you don’t start helping with the paperwork I might brain you with my stapler.” She sips her coffee, while Castle is still trying to come to terms with the conversation, then drains the cup and looks at her watch.

“I’m done. I’d better get back. You done, Castle?” It’s surely only a trick of her voice or the coffee shop acoustics that makes him think there might be a subtext to her words. Surely. But that same sick feeling which had assailed him two days ago now hasn’t left him since she first said _let’s forget the whole affair._

“Yeah. Let’s get back.”

Everything is normal – and nothing is the same. He has the exceedingly uncomfortable feeling that he is seeing and talking to her through a thin glass wall, where everything is transmitted to her and nothing comes back. One way glass, blocking her from him.

The day proceeds normally. Papers make their turgid way from the left side of Beckett’s desk to the right and then into files, which eventually make their way into boxes with the rest of that case’s evidence. Boxes, it seems, will mysteriously make their way to the DA. Or, for the latest case, maybe the A-G. Castle can’t find it in himself to care. Beckett has been, and remains, relentlessly, ruthlessly, alpha. And normal.

The boys wander over, tentatively, at shift end. Not one word has passed Beckett’s lips that isn’t delivered in her normal, sardonic tones.

“Wanna come for a beer, Beckett? Castle?” It’s clearly an olive branch, and they equally clearly don’t expect it to be accepted.

“Sure.” Their mouths drop open, and are swiftly shut. “Only got time for one, though. I’ve got yoga.” It’s not even a lie. It’s merely wholly misleading. Said yoga is not a class, but an appointment with her mat at home, later. _Much_ later. She’ll be seen publicly leaving with the boys and Castle in search of beers, after a beer she’ll leave and they’ll think she’s gone to a yoga class, and she’ll be free to be in Archives. Like Mary Poppins, the plan is practically perfect in every way. She hums a little tune, contentedly, and packs up to join Castle and the boys quite happily.

Everything is just as it was three days ago.

* * *

It all works out exactly as Beckett had wanted, planned, and expected. Fired with the knowledge that there is something to find, and unconsciously desperate to prove that she can do it herself, she turns the whole of her formidable skill and experience on to the case and rips straight into it. After an hour, and an ever-expanding to-do list, she has an idea. It takes another couple of hours to implement. (It should only have been half an hour, but quite apart from the need to put every last clip and staple back exactly and precisely from where it had been removed so that no-one could tell what she’s done, she keeps finding more lines of enquiry to note down.)

But when she’s finished, she has a full copy of the entire file, which only just fits into her purse, and the papers which the three men had produced three days ago, which are safely at home. She gathers up a little dust from three racks over and sprinkles it on the box and around.

Job done, she’s suddenly tired. She takes a cab, rather than drive, as a reward for her brilliant idea. (And she’s not thinking about how to be comforted. Not at all. That’s likely over. He certainly hasn’t given her any impression that he wants to see her. _No-one’ll want you if you can’t succeed, Kate_ , wriggles under her conscious mind, where she can’t see or hear it.) Anyway, there won’t be any convenient parking round about her apartment by now. All the office drones will have snaffled it hours ago.

Home is quiet, and peaceful, and calm. Beckett runs herself a hot bath, with plenty of bubbles, and doesn’t think for an instant of anything outside her plan.   She very deliberately avoids any other thoughts, in fact. She decides not to do anything more this evening, and turns from her bath to massaging in her moisturiser, slowly and gently, and then to her cool, fresh sheets.

Everything is completely normal. Everything is fine.

* * *

“Why was your car here all night, Detective?” Montgomery asks pointedly. It’s clear he is about to start asking questions that Beckett has no desire to answer.

“We went for a drink, and I wasn’t going to drive after. Then I had yoga and it was easier to get a cab.”

Montgomery stares very hard at Beckett, who is entirely unbothered. Every word she has said is absolutely true. Partial, and incomplete in material respects, but absolutely true.

“You only had one beer,” he accuses. Beckett drills him with an entirely unfaked glare.

“You remember about my dad, sir?” Her tone is mild and respectful. The implication should have shrivelled Montgomery into a walnut. He can’t help but wince. He does remember. It’s one reason why he’d paired her up with Esposito. If she was knocking him into shape, she couldn’t be following her father into the black hole of alcohol, just as her father came out.

“Sorry, Detective. Okay. Of course you wouldn’t drive.”

Montgomery watches Beckett’s slim figure swing out of his office and back to her own desk, and wonders why he suddenly has such a feeling of disquiet when nothing is, apparently, wrong. Something, though, is twitching his instincts, but he has no idea what it is. He’ll just keep his beady eyes open. Wide open.

But over the next few days Montgomery’s excellent detective skills detect nothing whatsoever untoward.   Not one single, solitary, clue. None. Beckett is totally, utterly normal. She joshes with the boys and Castle, just like normal; she leaves when her work is done, still later than Montgomery would like by a long shot, but it’s normal; she’s been out with her team, as often as normal. Her cruiser is in a different parking slot every day. Just like normal. Montgomery had even taken a surreptitious swing through Archives, late one night, but she wasn’t there and the relevant box had dust on it.

It’s all absolutely – normal.

Except it isn’t. Except there’s a very slight hint of constraint within the team. Not from Beckett. She’s – Montgomery spits the word – _normal_. Almost happy, in fact. It’s the others. Ryan and Esposito seem like they’re tap-dancing on eggshells, as if the team bond is somehow fragile, about to snap. And Castle, when no-one’s watching, looks like someone’s kicked his puppy. All the tension is centred around Beckett, but none of it seems to touch her, and none of it comes from her.

Another week passes, and Beckett is still perfectly, worryingly normal. There are no new cases, and nothing much to do, and the level of backchat and ragging is undiminished. And yet there is still that strange air of fragility within his team. Montgomery watches, and waits, and can’t detect anything that would give him the slightest reason to query any of them.

Beckett is perfectly content with life. So she tells herself. She’s beaten her toxic addiction to a form of relationship that now she doesn’t want and doesn’t need. She’s had to. Castle hasn’t come near her.   She takes that to mean that they’re over. He’s got what he wanted, and it’s done. Deep inside, the knowledge that _no-one wants a failure_ eats at her subconscious.

She’s able to pursue her mother’s case without fear of discovery and without hindrance. Even better, she has a lead to follow. Best of all, nobody’s suspected what she’s doing. She’s exactly as she ought to be in the precinct, she’s been out with the team, she’s going to go out with Lanie later this week, now they’ve finally managed to match their schedules. She’s succeeding, at everything. Everything is, in fact, just fine.

Just. Fine.

Just as long as she doesn’t think about Castle. Just as long as she buries his complete lack of coming anywhere near her under the all-consuming, because she lets it be, poisonous addiction to her solo investigation. Just as long as she doesn’t consciously think that all of her team thought that she, having failed to pursue her _own mother’s_ murder successfully, needn’t have been told what was going on. Because if she thinks about any of those matters, the case might not be enough to fill the void that this whole fiasco has created in her life.

No relationship. No team. No trust. All she’s got is the case. It’s only one step better than January. But it’s a big step. Seven league boots step, in fact. It’s enough. More than enough.

It has to be enough.

And so she just keeps on looking, evening after evening, whether she goes for a drink first or to yoga class or simply straight home. After a few days, it begins to be less productive. After another three days, she’s scraping the bottom of the barrel. After that, she starts to spin her wheels.

Castle shows up at the precinct most days, plays it normal, keeps it cool. This is not the time to push and force and demand. No matter how much he wants to. She has got to come to him, because there isn’t anything that would allow him to start the game. She has to want it, too. He’s privately terrified by Beckett’s locked down control and absence of any anger, annoyance, or irritation, but he clamps down on his instinct – and it is _only_ instinct: there’s nothing tangible – to tell her she needs him. She’s perfectly pleased to see him, she banters with him – and the boys – just as she used to, she comes out with them. If she’s doing all that, she can’t have found another playmate. But she’s untouchable. Nothing affects her. Her coffee’s too hot – nothing. The pile of paperwork’s too high – nothing. The boys miss something – she teases them about needing new eyes or brain, but there’s no edge, no snap. She works as hard as ever.

And all the time the glass wall between her and the three men gets thicker and thicker. They can all see her, but they can’t touch her; and she won’t come out from behind it to touch them. The team’s still there, still working, still as good as ever; but it’s held together with cobwebs, and everyone apart from, it seems, Beckett knows it. And still Castle holds back, waiting for some sign that Beckett still wants him, strangling his urge to take her home and collar her, kiss her, and turn her into his kitten, looking for anything that might tell him whether or not she would still be receptive before he tries and then she safe words out on him and he’ll know it’s all over. He has to let her come to him, because he’s the one who fucked up, and he’s the one who needs to be forgiven for it.

Strangely, it’s Esposito who is worst affected. He’s short-tempered and silent, for the most part, not quite taking his irritation out on Ryan, working longer and harder than he needs to. Castle thinks that Espo’s trying to prove to Beckett that he’s still got her back, he’s still the man he was back when they were first partnered, back before Ryan arrived, years ago. But in the process he’s not helping Ryan, who’s beginning to look more than a little weary. It all comes to a head almost two weeks after the whole disaster began when Esposito snaps at Castle, who doesn’t take at all kindly to it.

“Why’re you here, Castle?”

“Observation.”

“Observe outta the way, then,” snaps Espo, who’d fallen over Castle on his way to the coffee machine.

“Watch where you’re going, Espo. You ran into me, not the other way around.”

“If you weren’t getting’ in everyone’s way, wouldn’t have happened. Why you botherin’, anyway?”

“What is up with you pair?” come Beckett’s cool tones. “Someone steal your space in the sandpit, Espo? C’mon. Kiss and make up.”

Espo grimaces. “I ain’t kissing him.”

“Don’t worry, Espo. You’re not my type.” Castle and Ryan feed the birds, Espo grins, rather unwillingly, and peace is restored. Beckett pays no attention to any of it.

But following that, Castle catches both Ryan and Espo in the break room later and suggests, rather more forcefully than he might usually, that a boys’ night in a bar would be a good plan. He is relieved, though, when the boys agree. It’s all falling apart around them, and they really, really need to fix it.   First, they’ll fix the three of them. After that, he’s got every intention of trying to fix Beckett’s relationships with all of them. And after that, he’s going to fix his own relationship with her.

At end of shift, all three men decamp together, without really thinking about it.

“Night, Beckett,” Ryan says.

“Bye,” Espo adds.

“Till tomorrow,” Castle says.

Not one of them, not even Castle, notice her surprised, slightly hurt look when she realises that they’re clearly going out together and they haven’t even mentioned it to her. By that time they’re already in the elevator, and the pieces of conversation drifting back as the doors close make it clear that they’re planning a long, beer-fuelled evening. She wouldn’t have wanted to join them when it’s clearly a boys’ night, she tells herself, and ignores her entirely unjustified, silly, childish hurt that they didn’t say a thing. She doesn’t have to live in their pockets. They certainly don’t have to invite her everywhere with them, every time. It’s ridiculous to be even a little bit upset by it. So she won’t be.

So she quietly goes home and buries her feelings and lets her tough coating thicken with another layer. As long as they’re all still the best at solving murders, then it really doesn’t matter if the boys are closer to each other and all going out for beers together. In fact, it’s probably a good thing that they’re not all so wound up in each other. Much healthier for her to have other interests.

By the time she goes to bed, at the perfectly reasonable hour of eleven p.m., she’s talked herself into believing that it would be better if she didn’t go out with the team nearly as often.


	33. But none, I think, do there embrace

Castle, Ryan and Esposito have, after some argument which Castle wins by the simple method of pointing out that he’s buying all the beer _and_ that there are no sports fixtures tonight in which any of them are interested, established themselves in a relatively quiet, dingy bar some distance from the precinct. In the interests of efficiency, they order several beers rather than one each, and some food. Then they look at each other, all hoping that someone else will start the conversation so that he – whichever he it is – can be blamed for breaking the masculine code of not talking about it.

Eventually it’s Esposito who snaps. “What’re we doin’ here?”

Ryan looks directly at him. “Aren’t you tired of walking on eggshells? I am. You’re tiptoeing around Beckett like she’ll shoot you if you breathe too loud, and you’re as mean-tempered as a rattlesnake with the rest of us. You need to sort your shit out, Espo.” He takes a substantial draught of his beer. There’s a silence, while Espo processes the fact that mild-mannered Ryan is calling him out.

“I’ve _always_ got her back,” he says, eventually. “Never let her down.”

Much suddenly becomes clear to Ryan. Beckett had looked at Espo and said _I thought you had my back_.

“She knows that,” he points out. “She’s not treating you any different from a month ago. She’s working with us all the time. She’s not shutting us out.”

“Don’t give me that crap, Ryan. She’s different, an’ all of us know it. ‘S why we’re here. Sure she’s just the same as a month ago. ‘Cept she ain’t. Dunno what it is but she ain’t… connected to us. Like she don’t feel like the team’s there for her anymore. Like she’s workin’ alone.”

Inarticulate Esposito might normally be, but when he does speak it’s frighteningly accurate. _Like she ain’t connected_ is possibly the best description of how Beckett has pulled into herself that Castle has heard. The only problem is that Esposito’s only applying it to the working day. Castle thinks that Beckett may not be connected to anything at all any more. Might not want to be connected, and worse, might not care. _Down in the dark with the monsters_. And then he’d said _I’ll keep you safe in the dark_. Fear winds through him, a thin, cold stiletto twisting in his gut. What’s she looking for?

It’s been nearly two weeks, and Castle hasn’t tried – or dared – to push. He hasn’t had the slightest signal that Beckett’s needed or wanted anything from him. She’s seemed fine: no obvious stress, nothing to allow him to force a start to the game; she hasn’t banned him, or ignored him, or even snapped at him. She’s been suspiciously unstressed, now he thinks about it.

“Ryan, you said you’d never seen Beckett fazed or upset. Has she been like she is now before?” It’s a serious swerve in the conversational direction, and both cops glance sharply at him.

“What d’you mean?”

“Espo said after you joined the team Beckett’s never lost it. You said, Espo” – he calls it back to memory – “it was like she put up a wall. Was that like she is now?”

The other two men look at each other.

“Nah. Not like this.” Castle’s face asks the question. “She don’t seem upset or angry or wired up. When Babyface here started” – Ryan aims a punch – “she was wired, underneath. Took a month or so to settle, an’ never really went away. Till this Christmas time. Never got the feeling she wasn’t connected to the team, though.”

“It’s like she’s found somethin’ away from the job,” Ryan adds doubtfully. “Somethin’ else. Or someone.”

Castle has to exert substantial effort to control his expression. In the immediate shock of that statement, he can only think of one thing: _she’s found someone else_. His kitten, his Detective badass-Beckett, has found someone else who’ll play with her.

“Maybe she’s found a boyfriend,” he says neutrally, hoping to be persuaded otherwise. He’s not entirely reassured by the reactions.

“Don’t see when. S’pose it’s possible, but it’s not that likely.”

“I’d have thought that even if she had met someone she wouldn’t be so blocked off, but s’pose it could be. ‘S not like she’d talk about it.”

“We’d’a known,” Espo states flatly. “If it was before” – he doesn’t need to specify before what – “we’d’a known. Met him.” A big-brotherly glint appears in Espo’s eyes. “Had a chat.” It’s pretty clear that Espo’s definition of a chat doesn’t involve tea and cakes in a civilised café. Nor, Castle thinks, beer and fries in a bar. A back wall in a dark alley, now… that’s very likely. “She’s not had time to find anyone…” He trails off, suddenly. Every single one of them is aware that Beckett’s been leaving early from the couple of evenings out that the team has had.

“Don’t think it’s a man, but it could be,” Ryan sums up.

There’s a short silence, which Ryan breaks.

“You think maybe it’s not that simple? It’s not natural, her being that shook up by us… finding something… at the time and then she’s been calm like this ever since. You think maybe she’s more upset with us than she’s letting on?”

“Don’t matter how upset she was, she wouldn’t hide it. Wouldn’t lie to us, either. She said she’d report it if anyone touched it. Said she’d dispose of it.” None of them remember that that wasn’t quite what had been said. Beckett had said that _they_ weren’t to touch it. But that small linguistic nicety is long forgotten.

Castle is left with two potential situations, both of which scare him silly. Either Beckett’s looking down from the bridge into the dark again, or she’s found someone else. Painfully, he concludes that it’s more likely to be the latter. If it were the first, he’d have spotted the stress building in her.

It doesn’t occur to Castle, or to Ryan or Esposito, that it might not be either.

“So how are we gonna fix this?”

“Dunno. You got any ideas, Castle? You’ve not said anything.”

“Must be a miracle,” jabs Esposito.

“We could stop sniping at each other,” Castle bites back. “Maybe that would improve things.”

“Yeah, that’d help,” Ryan chimes in. “If the team’s tight this side – if we get back to normal – Beckett’ll be back soon enough. She just needs time.”

“Guess we just let it work itself out. The three of us are tight, an’ she’ll come round. We just need to back her up, get her out a bit, keep it like it used to be. She’ll be fine.”

They can all agree on that.

Castle goes home in a now-familiar cloud of sick apprehension. He can’t decide what’s worse: Beckett looking into the dark and hiding it better than ever before, which he can’t quite believe because he knows all her tells and twitches; or Beckett having found someone else to keep her safe, which is horrifyingly plausible. He flicks a glance at his watch, and realises that he can’t drop in on her at past eleven. Well, he could. But he’s unlikely to get any sort of a civil reception, and if he uses his key he’ll likely get shot. And he couldn’t bear it if she weren’t there. Or if she were there, with someone else. He’d been thinking that she couldn’t have found anyone else, because she was joining them for beers when they suggested it, but now he can see that that might just be wishful thinking.

* * *

When Castle shows up the next morning, Ryan and Esposito are clearly back to normal – significant quantities of beer have obviously cleared the air between them, and Castle is very happy to see and play along with that – but Beckett’s more barriered than she was even yesterday. It really doesn’t help that there have been no interesting cases. Dull, closed cases, or simple pop-and-drop cases, but nothing weird or Beckett-flavoured.

“Lunch time,” Castle says, as early as he thinks he can get away with. “C’mon. You’re not that busy so let’s go and get a burger and a break.” He’s trying so hard not to push the issue that it comes across as a begrudged invitation.

“Do you mind if we don’t? I want to get this done before I take a break. I’ll get a sandwich later.”   It’s a good opportunity to detach a little. She doesn’t need reminders of what had been.

“I’ll bring you something back. What d’you want?”

“Tuna melt, please. A soda and an apple would be good, too.” He can’t complain. Work always comes first, with Beckett. But it doesn’t make him any happier.

“Okay.” Castle looks around. “Ryan, Espo? Want some lunch?” Noises of agreement are heard, and shortly all three troop out. Beckett tells herself it’s for the best and dives headfirst into the next cold case.

The boys are back sooner than she expects. She’d thought they would go for burgers and be gone for some time, but it looks like they all got sandwiches. Maybe they’re exercising their work ethic. Maybe they simply want to finish on time and get out, just like she does. She makes strenuous efforts to behave to them exactly as she always would have, and ignores the little nagging voice that’s saying that the reason they didn’t tell her they were looking into her case was that they don’t need her as part of their team. Paranoia is not helpful and not justified. She’s being utterly ridiculous. All she needs to do is back off a little and sort herself out. The team at work will be fine.

The afternoon passes slowly. Castle is clearly holding back something, but he’ll never be able to be quiet until tomorrow so Beckett is sure she’ll hear about it in due course. Except she doesn’t. By the end of the day no-one has said anything to her about anything that isn’t a case, but the boys keep shooting her glances when they think she isn’t watching – she is – and then exchanging significant stares with Castle.

By 5.30pm she’s fed up. It’s like being back in the school playground, all these unspoken conversations to which she isn’t a party. Well, she doesn’t need that. Time to go home. There’s a nice bottle of wine in her fridge and several good takeout menus on her table. She might go for a run, beforehand. She feels the need to stretch out her muscles and exhaust her body. She very specifically does not think that she could invite Castle by. He doesn’t need her. She doesn’t need it, or him, anyway. She’ll be just fine with a run, a glass of wine, a hot bath and a good book. Just like she used to be.

“Night, all,” she says, as she packs up. Castle jerks up to look at her. He’s been buried in his phone for most of the last hour, so she doesn’t know why he’s so surprised that she’s leaving.

“You’re going?”

“Yep. Things to do, people to see, you know how it is,” she says lightly. None of it is true. She has nothing to do except spin her wheels, and no-one to see. But she won’t go where she’s not wanted, either.

“Oh. I thought you might want to come for a drink with us,” Castle says casually. It’s so casual that Beckett takes exactly the wrong impression: that he doesn’t care at all if she does or doesn’t. On top of lunchtime’s unenthusiastic suggestion that she join him, it’s fairly obvious that they’re only being polite.

“Not tonight. Maybe another time,” Beckett says equally casually, pretending to the top of her ability that she doesn’t care if they don’t care, and departs, entirely missing the way the boys are looking at her and each other behind her back, which contains more worry than she’d approve of. At least on Castle’s part, that’s also hiding considerable pain. _People to see_?

But she isn’t looking, and she doesn’t see any of it. Instead, she goes home, changes, and goes out with her i-Pod and a playlist from all sorts of sources switched on. _Nobody’s on nobody’s side_ , she hums along to the tune in her head, and then, some way in, down by the Seaport, _you fly all around/till somebody shoots you down_. But no-one’s going to shoot her down. She doesn’t hesitate as she runs on, past the bridge, past the Seaport, past FDR Drive, back into the financial district, sweat pooling at the base of her back in the summer heat, the slight burn and pull of her muscles feeling good.

It’s enough, physically. It has to be enough, because there’s nothing else available. She’d only gone the other route because he’d felt right, that one first opening night and then each other time, and she’s never going to take that risk again. It’s not worth it. She looked into the dark then, and _she stepped back_. She’s not going to step forward again. She doesn’t need the dark. She doesn’t need the dark below the bridge and she doesn’t need the dark that she had found in the club, or with Castle. All she needs is her old ways of coping. Now she’s got a trail, and the case, they’re working again.

She’s coping. Back to her quiet, peaceful, ordinary, plain vanilla life.   She is cool and she is clear and she is always in command. ( _Sergeant Baker started talking with a bullhorn in his hand_ flits through her brain from her playlist, but there will be no riots and no bullets and certainly there will be no cuffs or chains.)

It’s all perfectly, soothingly fine.

* * *

A week later it’s all a lot less fine. She can’t find anything more on her case, no matter how hard she tries. She’s gone home early – for her – each evening, leaving before she has to watch the three men go off together and not invite her along. The atmosphere of unspoken commentary is really getting to her, but she’s too proud to force her way into a conversation that doesn’t include her and too scared to call it out. She’s acting – and it is acting – as if nothing has changed, as if everything is just as it was; trying to force everything back to normal by acting normal. In work terms, the team is just fine. As a unit, it’s becoming a disaster.

No team, no confidence, no relationship – and now no case. She’s begun to put in longer days, starting earlier because she’s waking early, leaving on time so that she can spar, or run, or do her yoga for hours; try to exhaust herself and then try to enjoy her bath, try to sleep on her clean, cool sheets.

In the bullpen the boys are worried. Beckett hasn’t put a single syllable out there that hasn’t been utterly normal, but she now hasn’t come out with them since they’d decided to let it run and they haven’t got a clue why not. She’s always busy. Always seems to have something else on. Always gone before they get a chance to ask. But over the last week she’s steadily got more wired up, and it doesn’t feel to Ryan and Esposito that matters are improving. But she’s never fazed, never loses it, never angry or upset. Never anything. She’s showing as much emotion as a store-front mannequin, and her resolutely friendly, civil, _normal_ behaviour towards them, and her ever-present work ethic and consistent solve rate, is doing nothing at all to convince them that the team is tight.

“This ain’t working, Ryan,” Esposito mutters in the break room. “You ‘n’ me are good, an’ you an’ me an’ Castle are good, but Beckett’s head ain’t even in New York state most of the time. The team’s broken, an’ I don’t know how to fix it.”

“I dunno either. She’s” – Ryan searches for a word – “remote. Alaska-remote. Just as cold, too. I wish she’d just blow up and be done with it. She’s so friggin’ normal it’s worse.”

But coffee and conversation don’t give them any ideas, and it certainly never occurs to either of them that Beckett thinks that it’s they who don’t want the team the way it used to be. Both too nervous to try asking – Beckett’s ability to depress pretension with one eyebrow is legendary – they prepare to spend another day in the uncomfortable atmosphere of the fractured team. Castle blows in, and nothing changes.

Until five pm.

* * *

Castle has not missed Beckett’s rising stress level over the last week. It’s not particularly obvious yet, but he’s seen it, and he knows Ryan and Esposito have seen it, and if it rises much further Montgomery will notice too. He’s also noticed that Beckett has been leaving before anyone can suggest a beer, and she’s been having lunch at her desk, claiming that she’s thinking and doesn’t want to break her concentration. And finally, he’s noticed that her glass wall is now a glass fortress which has thicker walls than a glass Fort Knox.

He’s had enough of this. The team’s broken, and whatever the others say, it’s his fault. He’s going to fix it. The boys are fixed, but he needs to fix the whole team, and then Beckett. He doesn’t care if she thinks she’s found someone else, it’s not going to happen. She is _his_ over-stressed kitten and she has finally reached a stage where he can legitimately tell her she needs him. He is going to make it better. Starting now.

“Beckett, let’s all go for a drink.”

“Hmm?” She doesn’t sound as if she’s paying attention.

“Come for a drink. All of us.” Eventually, she looks up. Enthusiastic acceptance is not a prominent part of her expression. She shrugs.

“Okay,” she says, without any noticeable pleasure or displeasure. “I can’t stay long.”

Beckett is somewhat surprised to be asked, but rapidly puts it down to Castle’s pathological need to be sociable. She might as well go. A beer would be normal. Civilised. Sensible. She will be all of those things. However, she won’t stay for long. She’s sure that fairly soon her presence will be superfluous, and despite her personal passion for baseball she doubts that the conversation will really include her interests. She certainly isn’t going to mention her work on the case, she has no desire to talk about her non-existent social life, and she doesn’t follow any of the currently popular bands or TV shows.

She also doesn’t want to sit in a small – they’re always too small – booth next to Castle. And it will be next to Castle, because neither Esposito nor Ryan will sit next to him. They claim it’s because he’s her partner. She suspects their reasoning is that it’s because he takes up too much space. She suspects that Castle’s reasoning has always been the hope that sitting next to her will allow him a little latitude in which to pretend that he’s allowed to get close. She doesn’t need to worry about that, either.

“Why not? Somewhere else you need to be? Someone to see? They couldn’t possibly be as attractive as we are, Beckett.”

“I don’t want to be out late. I’m tired.”

“You’ve gone home early every night. You can’t be tired. All you’ve done is paperwork.” Castle’s eyes sparkle suddenly. “You’ve been bitten by a vampire and you’re allergic to the sun now. That’s why you’re tired in the daytime.”

“I don’t think so. I’d have noticed if I had puncture marks in my neck.”

“Vampires don’t only bite your neck, Beckett,” Castle says wickedly, with a look on his face which suggests that vampire bites occur in some very much more private places.

“I think I’d have noticed that too.”

“No-one nibbling on you, Beckett?”

“What?” Beckett suddenly realises what Castle is saying. “None of your business.”

“Aw, c’mon. You gotta share, Beckett,” Esposito says from behind her, picking up on Castle’s cue with alacrity. “Why else are you running off as soon as shift ends? Gotta be a new man.”

“Better introduce us,” Ryan adds. “We need to meet this guy. Make sure we approve.”

“Vet him,” grins Esposito. “Tell him the rules.”

“Give him a call, Beckett. He could join us for a beer.”

“You are all insane. If I had a boyfriend I wouldn’t introduce him to you chumps. I can take care of myself and if you think you get to _vet_ who I see you are out of your tiny minds. If any of you have minds.”

Castle stands up, concealing his surge of relief. “C’mon. Let’s go.” He has a plan, carefully developed over the last few days or so, but it did depend on Beckett being single, about which he was painfully uncertain. Until one minute ago.


	34. Dulce et decorum est

They end up – no-one is quite sure how, except for Castle, who is perfectly aware of how it happened – at a bar a little way out of their usual territory. The boys don’t know – but Castle does – that it’s not terribly far from Beckett’s apartment. If Beckett has realised that it’s unusually close to hers, she’s not mentioning it.

Castle gets the drinks in. Beckett asks for soda, rather than beer, and claims not to be hungry when asked about food. Castle ensures that there is a surplus of fries and other tempting nibbles, tries not to think about how tempting nibbling Beckett would be, and sits down in a way which unobtrusively blocks Beckett from leaving without him moving to let her out the booth. Conversation starts lightly, with Ryan, who hasn’t missed Castle’s careful placement of personalities, opening.

“Where have all the interesting murderers gone? All we’ve had are pop-an’-drops for three weeks. I’m bored. If I see another 1PP form I’ll murder someone myself just to get a break from the paperwork.”

“Bro, that’s a bad plan.”

“Why? Doing time or doing paperwork – equally bad.”

“Yeah, but we’d have to do more paperwork to deal with you. Wouldn’t be fair, would it?”

“I wouldn’t care. Wouldn’t be me doing it.”

“I don’t think you’d like Rikers, Ryan,” Beckett points out. “Haven’t you heard what happens to cops and pretty boys in there? You’re both.” She’s determinedly, resolutely, unbreakably normal.

Ryan glares.

“Pretty boy?” he says disgustedly. “Me?”

“You’re prettier than Espo here,” Beckett snarks.

“Hey, what about me?” Castle complains. “I’m ruggedly handsome. Everyone says so.” He smirks. “I’m the gold standard.” He doesn’t miss the shudder that runs over Beckett. That phrasing was not at all accidental and she knows it.

“You can go to Rikers too, if you like. I’m sure I can find a crime to fit.” She shifts very slightly on the seat, drinks her soda, and despite her protestations of not being hungry, snitches a fry.

“C’mon, Beckett. Don’t you want something a bit more interesting than domestic disputes and store hold-ups? I do.”

“I’d rather no-one was murdered,” Beckett says without any inflection at all, and swallows another mouthful of soda. Her cop senses are twitching. She smells a set-up here. She just isn’t quite sure what it is yet.

“Never gonna happen, Beckett. People always get murdered. Might as well be interesting. We’ve always had all the weird ones. Ever since I got here.” Ryan chugs his beer and waits for someone else to pick up the thread. He’s trying, clumsily, to remind her that they’ve been a team for a long time.

“You’re the newbie,” Espo points out. “We used to do ordinary cases.”

“I’ve never seen you guys take an ordinary case till now,” Castle says. “I thought the three of you always took the difficult ones. I thought that was the point of you being teamed up.” His attempt at reminding everyone that they’re a team is considerably smoother than Ryan’s.

“Just good luck that we get the difficult ones,” Beckett says sarcastically. “We work at it, and the reward for good work...”

“Is harder work,” says Esposito, and fist bumps Beckett in a way Castle hasn’t seen in weeks. For a moment it’s all back to how it was, how it should be. The beer is downed, and replaced. The fries and other food disappear. Castle goes to have a discussion with the bartender, and returns.

Beckett smells set-up ever more strongly. The boys are trying just a little too hard to be normal-friendly. She plays along, because that’s the civilised thing to do. But deep inside she hurts a little more, because they shouldn’t have to try to pretend they’re enjoying themselves. It’s okay if they’re going out without her. She’s not going to get upset if she’s not a part of the team after hours. She is upset that they won’t tell her straight that they’re not interested in her joining them. She’s hardly going to pull a playground tantrum about it. After all, she knows she’s messed up too. She can’t even solve her own case. Yet. She will, though.

And then Ryan gets a text. “I gotta go,” he says, after reading it.

“What’cha got there, Ryan? Hot date?” Ryan blushes. “Ooohhh,” Espo singsongs, grabbing for Ryan’s phone and reading the text. His eyebrows rise, and he smirks meaningfully at Ryan. “Pretty sweet deal.”

“Grow up, Espo. Just because no-one’s taking you out tonight, leave Ryan alone.”

“How’d you know if I got a date or not?”

“You’re here, aren’t you? If you had a date you’d be home primping and plucking your eyebrows. You can borrow my mascara, Espo. But I’m not lending you my lipstick.” Espo growls dangerously, which has no effect at all on Beckett. Her snigger is as nasty as it would normally be. She is really quite an excellent actor, when she has to be. Normally, of course, that’s in Interrogation.

“You’re wrong, anyhow. I got a date tonight.” Beckett’s jaw drops.

“Both of you have got dates? You’ve gotta be kidding.”

“Seems so,” says Ryan, very smugly. “It’s just you who can’t get a date.” Beckett opens and closes her mouth wordlessly.

“Never mind, Beckett,” oozes Castle, wholly fake sympathy spread over his words. “I’ll wait while you finish your drink.” The boys are already standing, starting to leave.

“You don’t have to. It’s time I went home, anyway.”

“Not yet. Have another drink, and I’ll have another too, and then I’ll walk you home.”

“Not required. I can manage to find my own way home.”

“Company is nicer, Beckett. Especially when it’s my company.” He puts a large hand over her wrist before she can stand up. “No hurry. You’ve run off nearly every night for the last three weeks. It’s not good for you, all this hurrying around. You need to slow up and de-stress.” He moves a little closer, leaning in.

“I’ve been busy. I’m tired. I want to go home.”

* * *

Neither of them notice Esposito looking back from the door. He is more than a little surprised to see the relative positions of Castle and Beckett, although he’s rather unsurprised to note that Castle has managed to keep Beckett in the bar. That text to Ryan was… interesting. _Make an excuse and leave. Show Espo this so he does the same. I want to clear things up with Beckett. If I’m shot, I want peonies at the funeral._ He’s sure he couldn’t have conjured up a blush like Ryan had.

“He planned it all, to try and get us back on track. An’ it worked,” Ryan says, with unwilling admiration.

“Clever,” answers Esposito. “Wish he’d clued us in first.”

“Forgot you’d never been undercover,” smirks Ryan, for once wholly superior. “If you had, you’d know how to pick up a hint.” Espo merely growls. If the team is fixed – and it seems to him like it’s all back in place from the moment he and Beckett had bumped fists – he can put up with a bit of ragging from Ryan. Of course, he has some news too.

“Hey, bro?”

“Yeah?”

“He was holding her hand.” Ryan stops dead and nearly gets run over by a jogger.

“Say what?”

“Castle. Holding Beckett’s hand.”

“No. No way.” They look at each other.

“Fixing the team my ass.”

* * *

“It’s time I went home,” Beckett repeats. She’s quite certain that the point of the evening was to pretend to her that it’s all just as it was. Well, they don’t need to pretend, because it’s all just fine. She’s just fine. This is all totally unnecessary.

Castle looks up to ensure that Espo and Ryan are quite definitively gone. An audience is not required.

“Not yet. You need a break.” He moves closer again, and shifts his hand so it’s completely covering hers where it lies unmoving on the table.

“I’m fine.”

“Gold-plated bullshit, Beckett.” This time she doesn’t react to the critical word. Castle using that phrase is also totally unnecessary. She’s over that. She doesn’t need it. She is over that phase. That’s all it was. An experimental phase, that failed. “Something’s stressing you out again. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I’m fine.” She tugs her hand away. Castle gives her a very sceptical stare which has no effect.

“You haven’t been yourself for three weeks. And since last week you’ve been running off as soon as shift’s done. It’s not like you.” He takes a breath. “We’re worried about you.”

“That’s very sweet of you,” Beckett says, “but you don’t need to worry. It’s all fine. The team’s good.” She sounds completely unbothered by Castle’s concern. It flicks him on the raw edge of his own guilt, which he covers up with anger.

“The team _isn’t_ good, Beckett. Everyone can see that but you. Don’t you care?”

Beckett looks him full in the face and holds his gaze.

“If the team’s not good, you’re looking in the wrong place. I care that we solve crimes. I care that we get the right guy for the right murder as quickly as we can. I care about doing my job with my team, the best way I can.” She pauses. “So yeah, Castle, I do care. I care that we do the job right.”

“That’s all you care about. Doing the job?”

“Yeah. Everything at work is just fine. As long as we’re all good on the job then that’s enough.”

“So you’re not upset that we looked at your mother’s case?”

“Seriously? Why would I be upset about that? You meant well. Good intentions. Okay, so you made a mistake doing it, but mistakes happen. Why would that upset me? You’re still shadowing me, aren’t you? I haven’t asked you to stop.” She manufactures a grin. “The boys would be very unhappy if I did. Who’d they have to talk to?”

“You’ve been different ever since.”

“I’m no different from how I was a month ago.”

“I call bullshit _again_. You _are_ different. You _are_ messing up the team. You’re completely disconnected and either you don’t care or you don’t want to see it. You might as well not be part of the team at all.”

Beckett loses her temper in one single instant.

“ _I_ might as well not be part of it? _I’m_ messing up the team? It’s not me who poked their nose into things that weren’t my concern. It’s not me who’s snapping at everyone or looking like someone shot their puppy. I was quite happy to let it all pass by and get back to normal the next working day. You’re the ones who’re making this into some big deal and you’re the ones who don’t want to be around me because _you’re_ uncomfortable.” She can’t say – _because none of you trust that I won’t screw up. Miss something. Just like I missed something on the most important case of my life._

Castle looks straight back at her, aghast. _Nothing but a work team? You don’t want to be around me because you’re uncomfortable?_

“We’re uncomfortable with you?”

“Yeah. You don’t seem to get it. You’re all behaving as if I’m upset. I’m _not_ upset.” Not now. She’ll solve it, and that’s enough for her.

“But” –

“But nothing. I’m not going to pretend to be upset because you think I ought to be. You can take your pop psychology and shove it. It’s you three who are screwing this up because of some stupid idea that I’m upset when I’m not.” She stops. She’s danced along the tightrope of truth – but never told anything close to the whole truth – as far as she can without actually lying.

“I’ve got things to do. I’ll see you Monday, if you come by the precinct. I was surprised, but I got over it the next day and you need to get over it now. This subject is closed.” She stands up to leave.

“Okay, fine. You’re not upset.” He sounds entirely disbelieving. “Let’s discuss why you suddenly don’t want to have a drink with the team and why you haven’t given me more than the time of day for three weeks.”

“I don’t live in your pockets and you don’t live in mine. What I do when shift finishes is my business. What you do is yours. It’s good to have outside interests.”

Castle stands up too and looms over her, quite deliberately. “Outside interests? Let’s talk about your… outside interests. All the way back to yours.”

“Let’s not. Don’t pretend you’re bothered. Why should you be?” She sounds totally uninterested. “Unless you need some more background for your character.” She’s already at the door, moving out into the dulling evening light.

“That’s what you think? It’s all research?”

“That’s why you’re here. Research. If it had been anything else, you’d have made it clear over the last three weeks. But you’d finished with the file and that was everything you needed from me.”

And suddenly, on the comment, all her unhappiness boils over and she loses all her filters and dignity.

“What background do you want now, then? You got the murdered mother, and the hit man. Or maybe you’ll switch it a little. I’m sure you can make it a dead father. You are a _fiction_ writer, after all. And you’ve all the other information. Back story. Private life. What did you say she’d be – oh yes. A bit slutty. Well, that won’t be a problem either. You’ve done plenty of research there too. You don’t need to do any more of that.”

She takes a shattered, shattering breath.

“It was all research to you. That’s all that mattered. Write books, sell books. After all, it’s not real life once it’s part of a best-seller. It’s just fiction, so it doesn’t matter that it’s someone else’s life.”   Her voice breaks on the last word. He can’t say anything for a second, and by that time it’s all too late.

She’s gone while he’s still staring at the space she was standing in, five strides down the street before he’s even moved, halfway to running when he raises his eyes to find her, rounding the corner before he’s taken more than a single step. And then he’s haring after her.

She thinks he’s just in it for the story. All he’d wanted to do was give her time and space to let her come to him, and she thought that he’d ditched her. Again. _Ditch me once, shame on you. Ditch me twice…_ If there’s one thing Detective Beckett is not short of, it’s pride.

But she may be fast, but he’s faster. Bigger, faster, and right now a damn sight more motivated. He moves faster, rounding the intersection. He could find his way to her apartment blindfolded, and fuelled on fury and frustration the intimidating air he’s giving off is clearing the passers-by out his way. For three weeks, he’s been hanging on to control by his fingertips, and he’s tired of it. He’d given her space and room and not told her that she needed him, even when he’d thought she did, because he thought she needed peace and quiet and _space_ more.

He should have gone with his instincts.

He can’t see her when he clears the corner, and for an instant his heart stops, until he notices the wake of pedestrians slowly closing where she’s been. She’s still moving in the direction of her own apartment, but though he might get past the outer door of the building, and even the door of her apartment, he’ll never get further unless he gets there simultaneously, or better still, first. He pushes on harder, and reaches the building door, he thinks, only a few seconds behind.

Except she isn’t there. The door isn’t closing, she isn’t in the hallway, and he was too near for either to have happened without him noticing. Somehow, she’s eluded him. He looks around frantically, but she’s not there. There’s only an empty space where she should be, and the memory of her devastated face.

Gone. He leans against the wall and tries to think, over the clawing, ripping hurt and terror in his chest. Where would she go, if not home? If she’s single, then she hasn’t ( _yet,_ says a chilling voice in his head) returned to the club. If she hasn’t gone home, then she can’t go to the club because she won’t go with the identifying marks of her profession and her badge number on her person. That merely leaves the whole of the rest of Manhattan. He starts to walk, slowly, unwilling to pick up a cab in case she simply ducked around a corner – but why would she? She doesn’t expect him to follow her. She fled because she was breaking and Detective Beckett never breaks.

It takes him a few steps more to notice the subway entrance. He’d swept right past it. Beckett – might not have. Might have gone straight to her haven, seeking asylum in the only place she might find it. The precinct, or perhaps the morgue. But he doesn’t think at all that she’ll search out Lanie. Beckett doesn’t share, ever. Hides her stress and, he is now sure, hides her upset.

That hurts, too. She’d rammed down and hidden her upset in exactly the same way that she’d hidden her stress, but far more successfully. He’d thought that he knew her. Right now, it seems like he had never known her at all. He hadn’t spotted a single tell or twitch, so he hadn’t signalled to her at all. And now she’s disappeared into the warren of the subway and his only hope is to go to the precinct and see if she is there.

* * *

Beckett had considered going home, but as she’d come up to the subway station she’d thought that she didn’t need the case staring accusingly at her. She has enough to deal with, without adding that particular failure to the mix. Failed the team, failed relationship, failed case. All that’s left is to run, long and hard, until she’s too tired and it’s too late to care. Tomorrow, she’ll be fine. By Monday, it’ll never have happened.

Her locker in the precinct has a spare set of running clothes and, when she’s done, she can either go home or go back there. Either will do: she doesn’t expect that she’ll sleep tonight, not well, and likely not at all, so she might as well do something useful with the paperwork. It’ll stop her thinking, and in the mindless tedium and drudgery she’ll calm down.

She’ll run, and run, and then she’ll work. Run herself into the ground, but not into the dark. Never again, into the dark below the bridge or the dark within her mind. She’ll run out in the twilight and run back to her safety zone in the bullpen: finding the light and the answers for others: always succeeding so that she never need remember that she’s failed at everything else. She has to succeed, because she can’t afford to fail.

She won’t fall into the dark.


	35. Death comes slowly

She changes in quick time, needing the burn and stretch in her muscles to bury the memory of this evening. She’s gone again before anyone in the bullpen can notice her presence, as noiseless and invisible as a phantom, as uncatchable as a faerie; as disconnected from reality as either, and as uncaring.

She turns south, past the park, down through the Bowery, knowing, but not knowing, that she’s heading for Two Bridges. She only wants to lose herself in the physical, and running is the only way she can, tonight. Tomorrow, she’ll think about sparring, or yoga, or the weights in the gym. Tomorrow, like today, like any day in the last three weeks, she won’t think about any other way of losing herself, or of putting down her burdens and her failures for a time. It had only been a dream, and now it’s past.

And so she finds herself below the bridge, and then on the bridge, looking down into the dark, smooth waters below: the river running to the sea; the lights gleaming softly on the gentle ripples which swallow up so very many disturbances and move on, unchanged and unaffected.

She stares down, into the dark.

* * *

Castle had picked his option and gone to the Twelfth. The desk sergeant is pleased to pass the time of day, but is less than helpful on the presence or absence of Beckett. He thinks she came in – but he isn’t sure, because it’s been a bit busy tonight and he hopes it slows down a bit – but he doesn’t know if she’s upstairs or not. Castle is, of course, very welcome to go up and see if she’s there.

She isn’t there. Her computer is not on. There are no papers on her desk. The bullpen is as cold and dark and empty as his future. Except…her keys are in her desk drawer. And he knows that she took them out at the end of the day today, before they all went out. So she has been here, and she will be here again.   All he has to do is wait.

The minutes drag past. He has no book, and the games on his phone don’t appeal. He paces, and makes coffee, paces, and drinks it; repeat, ad infinitum. It’s past ten, black outside, black misery surrounding him. She’s gone down into the dark where the monsters lurk: he knows it. Down in the dark without him to keep her safe. He waits, and waits, and waits some more, sits in the lightless break room with his large hands swaddling the coffee mug, the scalding heat a penance branding his palms.

He’s long past beginning to think that he was mistaken when there’s the noise of the elevator and the sharp, quick step that means alpha-Beckett, hard shell in place. Her step rings with authority and command. He doesn’t move from his seat, carefully selected to watch her desk, and doesn’t say anything. He needs to know what she’s going to do next.

She sits down at her desk, the sound of her computer powering up ringing through the shadows around her desk, only the small lamp on to illuminate her work, and pulls a file towards her. Castle flicks a glance at his watch, and observes without any surprise that Beckett is restarting work at well past ten at night. It doesn’t look like this is a quick in-and-out visit to deal with a sudden thought, either. That looks very like settling in for the long haul. If she runs true to type, she’ll be searching for coffee shortly, believing herself alone.

Ah. It becomes clear, here in the dark. Believing herself alone, just as disconnected from the team as she’s been for three weeks. She’d said – _you’re the ones who don’t want to be around me because you’re uncomfortable_. She thinks that they’re avoiding her. She thinks that he, Castle, was only in it for research and now he’s finished with it. And with her. And her damned pride has kept her from doing anything about it except _pretending_ that everything was normal and behaving exactly as usual – and then shutting herself off and walking away so that she didn’t force them to have her around when they weren’t comfortable with her. No wonder she wouldn’t come out at lunch or after shift. _Pride, thy name is Beckett_. No wonder she wouldn’t ask.

She wouldn’t ask, and he didn’t tell. Every day he didn’t tell, trying to give _her_ the choice to come to him, left her more reluctant to ask, and now she’s sure it’s over.

There’s a sharp, shocked intake of breath at the door, quickly suppressed.

“What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you.”

“I’m busy.” She’s cool and dismissive, ignoring him in favour of the coffee machine. “There’s no need for you to be here, or to wait.”

“I’m not here for research. I’m here to see you.”

“Did I miss something?” she says lightly, uncaringly. “You’re following me for research. Surely you don’t want to research the paperwork too?”

“It’s not about research.”

“Oh? It can’t be about the coffee. I thought you had an equally good machine at your loft. You won’t want the slop from the old one here, unless you want poisoned.”

He can sit in the dark break room if he wants. How very... writer-ish. She’d prefer to be alone in the bullpen. _Fake it till you make it, Kate_. Kate. She is Detective Kate Beckett of the Twelfth Precinct. Top cop. Still part of the top team – at least at work. And perfectly fine. _Fake it till you make it_.

Her long run, and the time she spent staring into the river, have left her calm and reinforced her shell. She has the case. Something will pop, if she keeps working it. She’s looked at one form of dark, tonight, knowing everything’s over, and stepped back without the slightest hesitation, has deliberately proved to herself that she can look at it and walk away. She doesn’t need that dark.

Now she’ll prove that she doesn’t need the other dark. Pride keeps her spine straight and her voice light; pride keeps her eyes clear and dry and her face smooth; pride keeps her from betraying how much she minds. Pride is all that’s left to her, and she clings to it as the martyr does to her faith. She makes her coffee, but pretending to be normal or not, she doesn’t offer to make one for Castle. She isn’t going to encourage him _researching_ out of hours. Research should be confined to normal working hours.

“I came here for _you_ ,” he emphasises. “Not for research. Not for coffee.”

“I’m busy. I’ll see you Monday.” It’s a very definite dismissal, albeit dressed up in pleasantly normal tones.

“No. I’m not done.” She looks back, surprised at his harsh tone. “I want to talk to you.”

Beckett shrugs, indifferently. “Knock yourself out.” There’s nothing more he needs to say, but he never stops talking, so why should now be any exception? She doesn’t have to listen for more than a minute. She has work to do. She leans on the counter, standing, not wanting to imply that this might take any length of time.

“So you’re not upset,” he says, eventually. “Okay.” He’s still sitting, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, thinking hard. He can’t find a way to put his point that doesn’t involve blunt words and blunter actions. The time stretches out. Eventually Beckett breaks the silence.

“This is pointless. Everything is fine. Nothing’s changed about the team. Nothing’s going to change. If you all stop making a fuss about nothing it’ll be sorted before we even start work on Monday.”  She’s not upset they looked into her mom’s case. She’s upset that they didn’t tell her about it when they started, but it’s over now and she can let it pass. The team will be fine as long as they stick to the job and as long as she doesn’t need, want or expect anything more from them.

Castle realises, to his dismay, that Beckett is going to stonewall, ignore, and hide her feelings and thoughts for as long as she can. Subtlety is not going to help here. Subtlety, he realises, far too late, has never helped or worked, whether it’s his first visit to the precinct or his first, second, third or any later insistence thereafter that she surrender to him; whether he walked out on her or walked in on her or walked with her. The only thing that has ever worked is bulldozer tactics, physical near-coercion to keep her in one place, and hammering at her silence and evasions until they break. In short, dominating her both physically and with personality and words. The only problem is that he has done so in private – except one time, here. Maybe one time will become two.

“One thing has changed.” Beckett raises an eyebrow in query. “You’re running away from me again.”

Beckett simply shrugs. “I’m not running away. I’m right here in the precinct each day, with you sitting right there at my desk. And here you are now, sitting right in front of me, when it’s not even working time.”

“You know perfectly well that wasn’t what I meant.”

She’s getting irritated, now. Surely she’s provided enough hints that this discussion is over? It’s all over.

“Oh? Why don’t you try saying what you did mean, then?”

“Up till three weeks ago we had something. Now we don’t.”

Beckett simply shrugs, again. “It happens. Life moves on. We can all be grown up about it.”

Castle simply stares at her. _Life moves on_? Beckett improves the shining hour. “It was fun while it lasted but it’s over. You lost interest. It happens.”

“ _What_?”

“Oh, come on. You’ve got the story, you’ve lost interest. You’ll get one book out it but that’s all. You’ll move on to the next project. You don’t need to pretend that this was about anything other than research and I don’t want you to. It’s never a good thing to mix work and social life. So you can soothe your guilty conscience and stop pretending there was anything more to this. I’m not going to weep all over you. It’s fine.”

He stands up, takes two steps to where she is dealing serenely with her coffee, and traps her against the counter.

“It’s fine? You’re at your desk at eleven at night and you think that’s _fine_?”

“My choice. My life.”

“The same life you were thinking about throwing over the rail of the bridge? Where have you been for the last two hours, anyway? _Running_?”

“I stepped back. What’s it to you, anyway? You’ve already checked out.” She straightens up. “It’s fine. No hard feelings. See you Monday.” She tries to move away.

“You’re not going anywhere.”

Anger rises in her face. “This conversation is done. Let go.”

“Funny sort of conversation where you’re the only one who speaks. Or are you scared to listen to me?”

“Scared? Of _you_? No. Bored of this discussion? Yes. You checked out weeks ago, and talking about it is a waste of time. But carry on talking if it makes you happier. You will anyway.”

There’s nothing but indifference in her tone.

“I am _not_ checked out and I’m not done with you. This has _nothing_ to do with research and everything to do with you. You’re mine and I’m keeping you.”

“Do you really think that game’s still on? You decided you were done, just the same as the last time. Well, fool me once, Castle, but you don’t get to do it twice.”

“I was waiting for you.”

“Waiting. I see. Waiting for what? Kingdom come?”

“I thought you needed space. So I left you space.”

Beckett shrugs again. “Sure it wasn’t you who needed _space_ , Castle? All three of you tiptoed around like rats round a terrier making it clear that you all needed room. That’s fine. We don’t live in each other’s pockets. Would have been nice if one of you had had the balls to tell me that was what you wanted, but never mind. I worked it out.” She pushes him back. “Now. I’ve got work to do. This conversation never happened. This whole affair never happened. I’m going to drink my coffee and when it’s gone so will you be.   Next week it’s all going to be back to normal.”

She looks down very deliberately at where his hand is clamped on her wrist, and back up to meet his eyes. Her own are dry and cool, but deep in the hazel there’s something more.   He remembers that much earlier this evening there had been a loss of control and a break in her voice. He remembers that she’d fled upon the final, breaking word.

She’s lying.

“You’re still talking, Beckett. How about listening to the rest of it?”

“Go on, then.” It’s not conciliatory.

“I thought…” he changes tack. “It was my idea to investigate. I didn’t want to push you after because I thought you were mad at me.” He hesitates, but he has to be blunt because nothing else is getting through.   “I thought if I were to push you, you’d safe word out and it would all be over. I didn’t have a clue what you were thinking or what you wanted. I… didn’t want it all to be over.”

The words fall into an abyss. There is no reaction whatsoever. Finally, she speaks. Her voice is quiet, chill and dead.

“I have work to do.”

“Go do it, then.” She turns away, immediately correcting the fractional slump in her posture. Ah. Proof. “But I’m sitting right next to you while you do it. And when you’re done, I’m taking you home where we will finish this discussion properly.”

His hand wraps back around her wrist to tug her to face him. “But before any of that happens…” He dips and takes her mouth and holds her hard against him. She won’t deny this. She won’t deny him.

And she doesn’t.

He’d been _right_ : she’s been hiding, because if she didn’t want him she’d be pulling away, not pushing in; she’d be safe-wording out and then she’d shoot him. Her gun is in its customary place on her hip, perfectly accessible.

“You still want _me_. If you just wanted the sex you’d have gone back to the club and found someone else.   This isn’t about the sex, it’s about _us_. You and me. So sure, go do your work, but when you’re done we are going to leave _together_.” He leans in again.

“I still want you,” he breathes. “I haven’t stopped wanting you since the moment I met you.” _I love you_.

He kisses her again, pinning her against the counter and trapping her there, forceful and desperate: her hands rise to knot into his hair and she emits a small half-sobbing noise as she softens and curves and gives in to his force and her own need.

It’s so easy for her just to believe in his words, to fall back into the pulsating physical passion that he induces in her – in both of them, together – with barely a touch. So easy, and so good. They both want it, so why not indulge? He’ll keep it secret. As long as she remembers that it’s just this: physical need and want; a game that two can play. _I want you. You want me._ And she does want him, overwhelmingly.

He’s never mentioned or hinted at anything else. But maybe it’s not the failure she thought it was. And she needs it. Needs him to give her the peace she can’t find for herself, to stop her failing, to take her to the one place she can’t fail.

She can have this peace. One foot out the door, for each of them, physical relief from this dark, clawing _want_ that drags sharp talons through her core and leaves her gasping for him. Never asking for or expecting emotion, because it isn’t required. Just as well. She can live with that. She has secrets of her own, and as long as she can trust in the safe word – and she can – no more is needed.

She ignores the swirling nausea in her gut, and the still small voice in her head: both telling her that this is wrong, that she shouldn’t do this, that sometime, he’ll leave again, and that time will be forever. _Then what will you do_? She shrugs it off. By that time she’ll have finished with this phase, and she’ll have solved her case, and this minor little interlude won’t matter.

 _He wants me; I want him_. He might even care about her, a little; worry about her, a little. But he doesn’t love her, and so she’d better not fall in love with him. ( _Too late_ , the voice in her head whispers, _far too late for that_ , but she doesn’t listen.) If he’d loved her, he’d never have allowed her space: he’d have pushed and shoved and forced his way in to provide her with rest and respite. But that’s okay: in fact it’s good. If he doesn’t love her he won’t expect anything except the sex. It’ll simply be a spectacular interlude. Like a dream, and just as transient. She won’t even need to worry that it is absolutely not who she used to be, because it’ll only be a dream-diversion, and a dream-lover. It – he – won’t ever be a real lover, and this won’t be who she is in future. That’s okay, because if it’s not real then when it inevitably ends it’s not a failure, simply a natural progression.

But that’s fine. Everything is just – fine. So long as she doesn’t actually think about the lies she’s just told herself.

She breaks away. “I could leave the paperwork,” she husks. “It’ll keep.” Castle smiles very slowly.

“Are you suggesting we should leave now?”

“Only if you want to…” She lets it trail off, shifting into the headspace where he’ll take the lead and the decisions, leaving it all up to him.

“Oh, I want to.” Nightfall has dropped over his eyes, his voice falling to a deep growl which rubs roughly along her nerves and takes her down into the dark. “If you’re sure you don’t need to work,” he says, arrogantly certain that she won’t be working now.  

She shakes her head. One route to calm or another: she doesn’t need both, and this way she doesn’t expect that there will be any talking either. No talking, in dreams. No failing, either.

“Then let’s go.”

He doesn’t touch her on the way out, because if he does, they won’t leave. In the cab, he confines himself to wrapping her tightly in, leaning close, the way he knows she likes, swaddling her into his size. He knows, too, that she needs cossetted as much as she needs dominated: needs to stop being in charge and be loved without condition, expectation or demand.

He loves her every way she is: fully realised it only earlier today when he heard her say _it’s over_ : when she thought he’d checked out. Surely now she knows that’s wrong. He had never got over her, right from the very first time. He’ll never be over her. He clasps her closer, and notes her curve towards him with a mixture of relief that they are mended and satisfaction that she’s his.

Now, she’s all his, and she knows how he feels. Nothing in his way.


	36. Slow poison

“You were out running, down in the dark, weren’t you? Looking for trouble.” He’s growling into her ear as they ride the elevator to her floor, grit and gravel and the rough scrape of danger. “I told you, you don’t go looking for trouble, you come looking for me. But you didn’t, did you? Well, trouble’s come looking for you.” She sighs softly and curves against his arm.

“Am I in trouble?” she breathes, and lets the physical reaction to him simply…take her away.

“Oh, yes.”

“Just like last time? Oh good,” she purrs sleepily, and quite deliberately doesn’t think about what she’s doing, or what might have been. All she needs is a space of peace, to clear her head of stress. And right here, right now, all she has to do is let it happen. She scrapes sharp nails across his neck as they fall through the door. Gentleness is not wanted or required.

Inside the apartment Castle takes the hint, remembering _last time_ , crashes down on Beckett’s mouth in reply and takes it hard and rough, trapping her between his body and the wall, scraping his hands up the outer side of her quads and then ripping open her pants and shoving them off her slender hips, panties following till she’s revealed to him and he can roll against her, grind in and make her gasp and whimper. His mouth moves round, nips almost-painfully at her neck; his tongue licks wetly under her ear and she mewls softly, arches and rubs.

“I don’t need to put your collar on, now or later. You don’t need it to know you’re mine, do you?” She merely shakes her head, once, and slips into the dream.

Dextrous hands slide across her, his shirt off and belt undone. He steps back, holds her pinned there by one wide hand placed flat against her from stomach to sternum: looks her over with hot eyes and hard desire.

“Pretty,” he grates, “and all mine.” He undoes her bra and drops it together with the shirt to the floor, leaving her naked in front of him.

“You want it?” he growls. “You want it rough?” His fingers dart between her legs once she’s nodded, push her open and one thick digit thrusts into her, out again, joined by a second one until she’s squirming and moaning and he’s still plundering her mouth while he takes her hard with his fingers: she’s digging her nails into his shoulders to stay upright.

“What do you want? You like it like this?” He presses his thumb on to her and she screams agreement. “You want me to fuck you? Take you _hard_? Like I did before? Say what you want. _Say it_.” He flips her round to have her face to the door and her back to him and grinds against her.

“Take me. Please. Fuck me.” Because if he fucks her there’s no chance that she’ll mistake anything he does, anything _she_ does, for anything more than sheer physical _want_. She’s been stupid enough. Time to wise up.

Whatever she wants, he’ll give her. And it seems she wants it rough. He hauls her hands up above her head, and her body back against his, pushing her into a slight lean forward, cupping her with his palm as his fingers thrust into her again. She moans and his hand drops over her mouth.

“You’ll rouse the neighbours if you make any more noise here,” he growls dangerously. “So I’ll see that you can’t.” His hand clamps round her jaw, and he fucks her with his fingers till she’s twisting against his body and screaming into his palm and spasms around him and comes.

“Now it’s my turn,” he grates in her ear, rolling on the condom. “Right here, just like you wanted,” and he surges into her in one powerful movement, covers her mouth again, rolls her nipples and forces her up and through another shattering climax that brings him to culmination too.

It takes him a moment to recover, to swing her up into his arms and carry her to her bed, to tuck her in, strip himself and keep her close against him. She’s soft and lax, sleepy, he thinks, and pets her; but she turns in his grasp and draws sharp nails across him once more, eyes fierce and body suddenly taut.

“Again,” she begs. “Like before.” And he does, regardless of his own preference to pet her softly, hard and fast and rough, and this time, after, she doesn’t ask for more, simply slips into sleep beside him, still as death, leaving him to follow, his arm across her waist, his hand over her heart, tucking her in.

She wakes in the early hours, and untangles herself to take a shower.   When she returns, wrapped in her plain, comfortable pyjamas, she doesn’t cuddle into Castle, but curls herself round a pillow, as she would do if she were alone. In a while, it’s damp at the top edge. She doesn’t make a sound. Eventually, she falls back into sleep.­

* * *

Castle doesn’t wake till morning, and when he does takes a little time to understand why this doesn’t smell or feel like his own bedroom.   Realisation that he’s at Beckett’s apartment is swiftly followed by realisation that she is not in his arms. She is, in fact, wrapped tightly round a pillow, back to him, and wearing pyjamas. Very unflatteringly plain pyjamas.

He slips out of bed, whisks through a very necessary shower, pulls on boxers and goes to put the kettle on. While he’s doing that, he notices the scattered remains of Beckett’s clothes, and domestically picks them up. He hadn’t been thinking about that last night – but now he has them in his hands, he notices that she’s back to the plain cottons that he had thought she’d replaced with silk and lace – that he had supplemented with more silk and lace – except he never had a chance to bring them over. But it’ll be okay now: more than okay. She’s his and he’s hers, and everything is just fine.

While he’s waiting for the kettle, he returns to the bedroom and very quietly investigates Beckett’s underwear drawer. It contains nothing but plain cotton. A little focused further investigation finds a pile of silk and lace on an out of the way shelf in her closet, behind a pile of soft t-shirts. Out of sight, out of mind? Hmmm. Beckett hasn’t moved since he’s woken, either, still tightly and defensively curled up. She is sleeping, however, and she obviously needs the rest. He thinks about slipping back in next to her, but he doesn’t want to disturb her and he’s not sure he can be beside her without pulling her back to him, away from her pillow, which would certainly waken her. So, with some considerable regret, he snags his shirt and pants, and returns to the main room for coffee.

Beckett wakes, alone, the other side of the bed cool. She doesn’t rise from the bed, merely rolls over, still holding her pillow, till she’s face down in the linens. Nothing to get up for, really, and she’s still tired. She nestles in, surrounded by faint traces of Castle’s aftershave on the sheets, and closes her eyes again. He’s not there, and the last faint shred of hope that there might have been more to it than sex and want and need dies silently. His absence confirms her thoughts of last night. It’s all about the physical, and the aftermath of soft contact was merely part of the game. No more than that. Nice, but meaningless. She drifts into a doze, and then to brief dreams.

Shortly the smell of coffee wakes her. She pads silently out and finds Castle lounging on her couch, a mug of coffee in front of him, and reading one of her books. He looks up, and a strange expression flicks across his face. It’s almost – assessing, she thinks. Sizing her up. Well, she knows what he likes, and how to play, and it’s not as if she needs to do anything other than listen and respond and stay in the dream.

“More coffee? I’m having one.”

Castle smiles lazily at her. “Sure.” He rises and prowls after her to the kitchenette. Once she’s put the kettle back on, he slides arms round her and tugs gently till she’s firmly tucked into him. “That’s better, kitten.” He nibbles softly on her ear and turns her round to be kissed, encountering no resistance. On the other hand, he isn’t encountering much mischief or life either – but then, a pre-coffee kitten appears to be as sluggish as a pre-coffee Beckett. He ceases kissing as the kettle boils and lets her make her coffee, and then his.

“Come here,” he entices, when it looks like she’s aiming for a seat that isn’t right next to him. He wants to pet her, a little, the way he hadn’t last night and couldn’t this morning. Obediently, she does, her coffee mug clasped tightly in her hands. She still seems tired, but when he drops an arm around her she wriggles a little to become comfortable and smiles, saying nothing. He assumes that she wants him to take the lead – that, after all, is how they roll – but the coffee limits his opportunities and when her drink is done she stands before he can stop her, sets the mugs by the sink, and stretches, yawning.

“I’ve got to go shopping,” she says, making a face, “and I have to see my dad this afternoon. He’ll probably want me to stay for dinner, too.” He will. Just as soon as she tells him that she’s coming over.

Castle makes a face of his own. That hadn’t been the plan at all. Still, they can have a little fun first, without damage to Beckett’s plans.   Well, only a little damage to their timing. He prowls up to her again. “What sort of shopping? Last time you told me you had to go food shopping and it turned out that you’d bought pretty little scraps of silk and satin and lace.” He smiles slowly, wholly in charge. “You didn’t show me them. Why don’t you show me now, and then I’ll choose some for today, to make up for not seeing you later.”

Why not? It’s all a game, and she might as well play along. It’s not as if she doesn’t like what he can do with her. To her. Let it play itself out. It’s the one thing that she hasn’t completely failed at. Yet.

She lets him steer her into the bedroom, and aims for the pile she’d hidden at the back of the closet shelf, where she wouldn’t have to look at the waste of money it represented. Maybe she’ll get some use out of them after all.

Castle looks at the pile now on the bed and back at his kitten, who is still not particularly kittenish. She isn’t very Beckett-ish either. He knows she’d enjoyed buying it, and he thinks she’d enjoyed wearing it – oh. And he just bets she’d put it all away because she thought he’d walked out on her. Oh well. That can easily be cured. He hadn’t, and he isn’t, and he won’t.

“So much prettiness,” he drawls. “So much nicer than your current apparel.” He strokes the pyjamas, incidentally undoing a button on the shirt. He turns back to the closet. “Which dress were you going to wear?” She turns round and extracts, without apparently looking or thinking, a cream dress with a delicate green tracery pattern.

The closet has quite a number of dresses, as before, but this time he notices that very few of them are deeply coloured – and two of those he had bought her. All the rest are cream, or pastel, with undemanding patterns on them. Soft coloured dresses in a soft coloured room with soft coloured linens. It’s all so very… bland. No. Not bland. Serene. The lingerie she’s bought is the same. No definitive colours, no bright shades. Cream and ivory and white, pale blue, or pale green, or pale pink. Castle picks up the light green set, examines it closely, and is satisfied.

“These ones, kitten. Should I wash you, first?”

“Already showered.” She starts to unbutton, but Castle forestalls her by catching both hands and holding them behind her back.

“I’ll do that. Nothing but what I give you, pet.” He slowly traces a long finger down into the vee of the top, resting it for a moment where her cleavage begins, and her eyes darken and she bites on her lip.

One button opened, to reveal the upper swell and curve of her firm breast. He strokes a little, and it rises as she draws in breath, her hands behind her back keeping her shoulders back, her chest out.

A second button, more of the curves beneath displayed, and he bends his head to drop a kiss in the vee between them. A tiny gasp ensues.

A third disc, and now it’s clear that the curves are flushed and tipped with hard peaks. He places another precise kiss between them, and the gasp sounds louder in the quiet apartment.

The final fastening, to let the shirt fall open and expose her for him, and now he takes each erect nipple into his mouth in turn, his hair darker against her ivory skin: licks and sucks, and when he nips she moans and arches into his lips for more, harder; wanting the roughness from last night. He’s in charge, he sets the pace and the game, and she obeys the rules. Not forgetting, never forgetting, that one new rule. No falling in love. It’s only want, and wanton need. His and hers, respectively.

In that moment, she hates herself for needing this, this way, this much. She’s ashamed of herself for needing it – him – at all, as she had been in the beginning. Then, instantly, she thinks of it as a dream, just the way she had dealt with her unwanted desire at first, just the way he’d told her the story. _Just a dream_ , he’d said, _nothing in a dream is ever real in the morning. Only a pleasurable dream_. There can be no consequences: even were he to forget protection she has not. The implant is barely detectable. Some risks she will not take, and some situations – some criminals – involve risks she cannot avoid. _Only a dream_ , she thinks, and lets his mouth drag her out of reality, losing herself in the swirling fog of the hot sensations and her body’s wants.

When the shirt knots around her wrists she accepts it, when his hands close on her hips she welcomes it, when the pyjama pants fall to the floor and hard hands widen her stance she pleads for it to become more, to take her up and send her soaring and plunge her falling like Icarus, flying too close to the sun.

“Tell me what you want, kitten.” She whimpers, his words gusting over her in warm breath only an inch from her heated, liquid centre: his palms hard against her hips, holding her still; unable to move; he’s kneeling in front of her but he’s wholly in control.

“Please. Take me. Any way you want.”

“No, no. It doesn’t work like that.   You have to admit what you want. You have to tell me that you want me to own you: admit that you’re my pet, my kitten, my sub. We both know that I’m your dom, your owner, and now I’m telling you to confess what you need.” He leans in, and licks, just once, and listens to her cry out.

“Face down,” she murmurs, finally, and then, a wash of soft colour over her face, “rough. I want it down and dirty. Please. Please just take me.” The last words are rushed out. Just take her into the dream, where none of this will be real tomorrow. Just take her, so she doesn’t remember that she’d hoped it might be more.

His hands tighten on her, without his conscious desire. The smooth possession in his voice doesn’t alter by so much as a semi-tone. “I’ll take you, kitten. Any way and every way I choose.” He takes another leisurely, languorous lick across her, finishing with a wicked curl around each part of the tight knot of nerve endings. She tries to writhe, and tries to plead. Each time she attempts words, he licks again, each time, he shifts his hands upward until he attains her breasts and rubs the heel of his hand over her over-sensitised nipples as he rubs the tip of his tongue over her over-sensitised core.

All she can do is emit a stream of half-vocalised pleading and frantic, desperate noises and then he stops, sweeps everything off her bed and pushes her face down on to it, just as she’d asked, frees her hands and stretches them above her head, forcing her fingers around the spindles of the headboard.

“Keep them there,” and he dons protection, opens her again, covers her and pushes hard home, takes her rough and dirty and just as she’d begged him to and face down she needn’t see him, needn’t remember that it’s not some faceless dream, and screams her pleasure without any words at all into the sheet and mattress.

“You’ll need another shower, kitten,” Castle points out smugly, as he pets her lazily. “What a shame you got so dirty. I’ll need to wash you clean before I put your pretty silk on. I wouldn’t want you to mess it up by getting your panties all wet.” His purr turns feral. “We’ll save that for another time.”

She doesn’t want to argue. It’s another part of a very pleasurable game, and if he wants to keep playing she’ll stay on the field of dreams. So she lets him wash her, and dress her as he wishes, and all of it is simply a dream that won’t be real as soon as the door shuts behind him.

As soon as the door shuts, none of this will ever have been real. Only a dream, nothing more to it. Only a game, that they both want and enjoy. Only a game, with nothing more sought or asked for or wanted or needed on either side: a dream that lets her deal each day with hard reality and lets her forget her manifold failures. It’s a good game, a good dream, this.

The door clicks shut, and, still barefoot, Beckett pads silently back to her bedroom, strips her bed of linen and her floor of the scattered underwear, puts the latter in her drawer with the plain cotton – one kind for dreaming, one for reality – starts the bed linen washing and remakes the bed with clean, cream, unscented new sheets and covers. Nothing to remind her of what she’s just done, of her dark, deep, addiction to his touch and his body. Nothing to remind her that she had thought… Nothing at all.

And then she falls face-first into her clean, fresh pillows and cries until she can’t cry any more, weeping for the death of all her dreams.


	37. And dream of Death

Castle hadn’t precisely wanted to leave, and still less had he wanted to leave either his kitten or his Beckett until tomorrow, or Monday. It occurs to him, as he leaves the building, that she hadn’t given any indication of when they might next see each other outside the precinct. It also occurs to him that she hadn’t been quite herself when she woke up, but he can’t put his finger on what it might be that’s giving him that idea. He taps out a text suggesting Sunday brunch at the loft.

He reaches home on a cloud of contentment that matters are back on track, and, kitten-Kat being unavailable, devotes himself to editing the current draft of Nikki One. Or, as it is now – finally – known, Heat Wave. It’s nearly done: he’s re-reading and tidying up before sending a final draft to Gina, who will probably bespatter it with red ink. On the other hand, she is _very_ good at noticing minor continuity errors, odd time jumps, and infelicitous word choices. What he hopes she _won’t_ notice, because he has taken considerable care not to include it, is anything that might indicate that Nikki Heat is anything other than badass, kick-ass and totally hard-ass, in every respect.

Nikki, in fact, is solely based in precinct badass Beckett, and has no connection whatsoever to kitten-Kat. Maybe – that’s an idea! Maybe he should let Beckett – he _never_ does this, only Alexis gets to see the drafts before Gina – read the unedited draft. She’ll see then that he’s kept her secret totally secret. It might reassure her. It’ll show her that he can respect the difference between on-duty Beckett and off-duty Kat. She’s so ferociously focused at work, and so perfectly, pliantly pettable in private.

She hadn’t been pettable last night, though. Or this morning, he thinks slowly. She’d wanted rough – no surprise there, she’d told him that particular fantasy quite early on and the last time she’d effectively run from her stresses she’d wanted him to be rough with her. Though afterwards she’d been very pettable. He enjoys that memory for a minute or two.

Then he thinks some more. Not just pettable, but she’s always been snuggly, cuddlesome, afterwards. She’d started off cuddled in, last night, but she must have woken and showered – she’d said she’d already showered, but it hadn’t been after he was awake – and put on pyjamas (she’s never done that before, either), and then cuddled round her pillow as if she were alone. He knows how she sleeps when she’s alone. He’d told her a story and told her to go to bed as if she were alone and she’d curled around her pillow with her back to the world: he remembers it clearly. He’d been there last night, and she’d still slept as if she were alone.

Well, he can fix that, given time. She’ll see – or rather feel – that he’s there, and not leaving her, and she’ll know that she can cuddle in again. She just needs time to understand, and maybe to get over the misconception that he doesn’t love her. She knows that he does now: he’d told her so. She just needs to believe it. And since she’s a professional _disbeliever_ , it’s going to take a little time. Not too long, though, not once he’s there by her side. It’ll be fine. But he won’t show her the unedited draft. It won’t help.

He only wishes that he didn’t feel so stupidly bereft that she wouldn’t cuddle in or be petted. That’s what had been wrong. He doesn’t just need the dominance piece, he needs the aftercare just as much as – he had thought – she does. He has to be able to pet and comfort and cosset her: he can’t protect her at work and he can’t – mustn’t – baby her generally; so he has to be able to take care of her like that. Emotional protection, perhaps, from her own serial need to over-achieve, from the demons inside her head.

His phone beeps gently, with a text from Beckett. _Sorry, Dad’s roped me into his plans for tomorrow. I’m entering him for Plumber of the Year – once he works out what a U-bend is. Seems he needs some help. So far I’ve been ‘helping’ for the whole afternoon. See you Monday_. It’s very… chirpy. It’s Beckett’s normal, sardonic style, taking no prisoners. He is vastly reassured, even if she’s not coming round tomorrow. He grins evilly, and opens his laptop. Five minutes later, without any consideration of the likely outcome at all, he’s ordered _Plumbing for Dummies_ , to be delivered to Detective K Beckett, c/o NYPD Twelfth Precinct, 321 East 5th Street, New York, NY10003, first thing Monday morning. He’s still sniggering happily some time later.

* * *

Beckett is indeed helping her father, including providing a running commentary on his sanity.

“Dad, can you just remind me why you’re doing this?”

“Well, Katie, since Lehman there have been a lot of corporate legal layoffs, so I thought I’d better have a second string to my bow.”

“Plumbing?”

“Sure. Have you _seen_ how much they charge for an emergency call out? And people say _lawyers_ are sharks. So I thought I’d do an evening class, but I need to practice.”

“So you took the kitchen sink apart. Tell me again why that was a good idea?”

“Well…” This time it sounds embarrassed. “I wouldn’t have if I’d known you were coming over, but since I didn’t” – there’s a significant pause and a notable change in tone – “and since I haven’t heard that story yet I’d quite like it, Katie, because you never come to see your dear ol’ Dad” – she snorts rudely – “for an off the cuff afternoon visit – I thought that if it didn’t work I’d get dinner out somewhere and worry about it tomorrow.”

“You can buy me dinner, Dad, and we’ll both sort it tomorrow.” She ignores the middle part of the sentence in favour of – well, just about anything, but swearing at the wriggling wrench is top of the list, and remains there for the next five minutes.

“Hold it _still_ , Katie, while I get this bit threaded back on.”

“Thank God you’ve plastic pipes,” Beckett mutters. “If you were soldering I’d call the Fire Department. You’d have set my hair alight by now.”

“Nonsense, Katie.”

“Dad, there are bumps on the bumps on my head, and all of them are from the tools _you_ have been holding. Stop. _Stop!_ This is not right.” She lets go of the U-bend that she’s been holding in place and it promptly drops to the floor. Again. Beckett extricates herself from the cupboard concealing the plumbing – or what is left of it – drags a hand over her over-heated, scarlet brow, and is sublimely unconscious of the fact that her hair is decorated with an extensive assortment of dust, grime and cobwebs and that she has just smeared silicone sealant over her cheek. She sits on the kitchen floor and regards her father resignedly, blissfully unaware that she has just sat on a lurking end of PTFE tape, which has attached itself to the seat of her cut-offs. It is, she reflects, very fortunate that she had called first and so changed to come out. Her dress would have been ruined.

“Don’t give me your interrogation glare, Katie. I’ve still got your baby photos. You were so cute… the glare hasn’t changed, though.” She glares harder. “Nope. You’ve got teeth now, instead of a pacifier, but otherwise, no change.”

“If you show those photos to anyone at all I will…” she can’t actually think of anything that wouldn’t get her arrested. Patricide is still a homicide, even if she could get it down to Manslaughter Two by reason of diminished capacity. This sort of provocation would _definitely_ induce temporary insanity.

“Mmmm.” Jim looks both parentally mischievous and suspicious. “And might there be someone I could or should show them to?”

“No.”

“Really? You denied that pretty quickly, Katie. Are you sure about that?” Jim thinks about the Fourth of July fireworks, and Katie’s conversation then.

“No. Are we trying to fix this plumbing or not?” She disappears into the cupboard.

“We’ll fix it.” Jim looks at his notes and handbook again. “If I just turn this washer this way… maybe not,” he decides, when Beckett yelps at the water dripping on her head.

“The _other_ anti-clockwise, Dad! The one that tightens it. Let me see that book.” She emerges again, and grabs it over his protests. There is a short, ominous silence as she flicks back and forth through the pages. This is replaced by muttering, and then teeth-sucking.

“You sound just like a real plumber, Katie.”

“Just as well one of us does,” she mutters.

“I heard that.”

“You were meant to.” She peruses further. Then she wriggles into the cupboard again. “Gimme the flashlight, Dad.” Pause. “Now the U-bend.” Pause. “Now the wrench… and the connector.” She wriggles out. “That should do it.”

“What did you do, Katie?”

“Threatened the connectors with my gun.”

“Katie…”

“Turned it the right way round. You’d got it the wrong way round.”

“Oh.” Jim leafs through his handbook again. “How’d you know?”

“You draw really good pictures, Dad. It’s just a shame you were reading the words. The pictures were right. The words were incomprehensible.”

“I’m a lawyer. We write incomprehensible words for a living. Pictures are for school kids.”

“And cops, Dad. My call out fee is…”

“Dinner. I know.”

“I’ll help you finish it tomorrow. Can I borrow your shower, or should I go home and change too?”

Jim looks at his daughter, and laughs. “I think you’d better go home, Katie. Take a look at yourself.” She does, and winces.

“Ugh.”

“It’s just like when you were a kid. Remember when you tried to help me paint the cabin?”

“I was _four_ , Dad. I didn’t have much fine motor control. And if you reveal that story to _anyone_ I will arrest you and leave you in a cell overnight. In Albany.”

“That’s the second time you’ve told me not to reveal your childhood to anyone. Why are you so nervous about it? Should I be expecting to meet someone, Katie?” Such as, Jim thinks, one Richard Castle, author and celebrity, currently shadowing Katie.

“No,” she snips. Jim fixes her with a very parental stare. “No.” More staring. “No, Dad.”

This is not fair. Her father should have stopped interrogating her about dating – ooohhh, eleven years ago. And it’s not as if there’s anything she wants to tell him. He would only need to know if it were serious, and it’s not. Not for either of them. So there’s no need for her dad to produce that look.

“I need to get home and change. Where will I meet you for dinner?”

“We should have something suitably blue-collar. Pizza?”

“Sounds good.”

“Let’s meet at Patsy’s, 61 West 74th. Seven.”

“Okay. That gives me time to wash grease off my face and cobwebs out my hair. Ugh.”

“Katie, you have your hands in dead bodies and blood every day. How are you upset by cobwebs?”

“Dead bodies don’t have spiders in them. Usually.”

“Got me there. Off you go. See you later.”

“See you at seven, Dad.”

Jim watches his daughter vanish at high speed and considers the conversation he might have over dinner with a grin. If Katie won’t introduce him to her Castle fellow, he’s fairly certain that he can manage to find him quite quickly. After all, he’s a celebrity, and celebrities are photographed, tweeted about, and generally very easily traceable. He spends a little time making a few delicate enquiries, and is shortly in possession of quite an array of information, for which every last one of his corporate intelligence contacts will swear in court that everything was obtained legally. Strange how little recent information there is. Still, he’d like a little chat with Richard Castle. Just to make sure his Katie is treated right, of course. Though maybe he should be offering tips to keep her from killing him. He’d hate to have to visit Katie in Bedford Hills.

Beckett hurries home, showers, washes her hair, washes her hair again, washes it for a third time just in case she’s missed a cobweb, washes herself again to drown any possible remaining spiders (ughhhh) and swiftly dresses. She notices Castle’s text once she’s clean, somewhat surprised. Still, she’ll be busy tomorrow, too. Judging by today, she’ll be busy most of the day, and spend most of the evening washing off the dirt. She replies accordingly. Anyway, she doesn’t need him today. Everything’s fine.

She puts on, with a slight air of defiance which is lost on the sultry August air, pretty underwear in soft ivory, and a plain white broderie Anglaise trimmed dress. She’s at the pizzeria just on seven.

“You look nice, Katie.”

“Thanks, Dad.” She preens a little. It’s nice to look nice. It’s even nicer when someone notices.

“I didn’t know you had more than one dress,” Jim says.

“I do. They wouldn’t be practical for work, though.”

Pizza is ordered and enjoyed, with sodas. When that’s done, Jim tries a little lawyerly probing. Unlike his last dinner with Katie, she hasn’t mentioned work or the precinct or Castle once.

“So what happened about that Castle fellow, then?”

“Oh, he’s still getting in the way. Mostly he pesters Ryan and Esposito, though.”

“I thought he was shadowing you.”

“I think he’s pretty much done with that. He’s learned enough about me.”

Jim looks very keenly at his daughter, and says absolutely nothing more about Richard Castle all evening. It doesn’t stop him thinking.

* * *

The precinct is a considerable improvement on the cupboard under her father’s sink, on Monday morning. At least it would be, if it weren’t for the suddenly raised level of murder and mayhem. The first corpse is called in at barely-past-eight in the morning, and by mid-afternoon every team is fully occupied.

“Beckett, we got one,” Ryan calls. She puts down the Amazon package – clearly addressed to her, but she hasn’t ordered anything – and gets moving, calling Castle on the way in a sharp clear snap of command.

The corpse is down near Battery Park, and even without Lanie there yet it’s pretty clear how he died. Something about the very large hole in his chest. There’s blood everywhere, too. Lanie turns up two steps ahead of Castle, and the crime scene techs a moment or two after that. The machine takes over.

“Ryan, Espo, we got anything on his phone, wallet, anything?”

“No. No phone or wallet. Maybe robbery gone bad?”

“Let’s check cameras. Uniforms need to do a canvass.”

“Already started, Beckett. CSU’ll run his prints soon as Lanie’s done.”

“Lanie, what’cha got for me?”

“What’s it look like? He got himself shot. I’ll run tox, but I reckon I’m looking at cause of death right here. I’ll call you as soon as I’ve got anything.” She disappears with her corpse in tow. Beckett crouches and starts peering at the ground beneath where the corpse had been, slipping on nitrile gloves and then prodding the earth. Castle leans over her shoulder and peers too.

“Anything there?” he asks hopefully.

“No. I was hoping the bullet might have gone right through him, but I guess not.”

“Wouldn’t do,” Esposito remarks. “That sorta damage, it looked like a soft point bullet to me.”

“Dumdums?” Castle enquires.

“We don’t call ‘em that.” He turns back to Beckett, who’s still poking at the ground. “Lanie’ll pull it outta him. You never seen one of them before, Beckett? Thought you had.”

“No,” she says. “Don’t remember it.” She doesn’t look up when she speaks. “Ryan, Espo, you stay on the canvassers, try to get footage off any street cams. Castle, we’re going back to scare CSU into giving me prints to run, try to get an ID.”

“Beckett,” Ryan says, “you want unis to look around for the wallet?”

“Yeah. I’ll go via the morgue in case there’s anything Lanie’s found in that chest cavity. Might be something.”

On the way to the morgue Beckett is quite quiet. She clearly hasn’t opened Castle’s little joke yet, and it seems like she’s thinking hard. For once, Castle doesn’t interrupt, largely because he has nothing to theorise about – yet.

Lanie has nothing for them either, and briskly points out that fifteen minutes is barely long enough to open the victim up, never mind do anything. “You know that, Kate. Stop pushing me. I’ll call as soon as there’s news.”

CSU are equally unready. Beckett is calm about it, but the click-clack of her heels as they enter the bullpen tells its own tale of frustration. Fortunately the boys bring back the information that camera footage will be provided relatively quickly.

In the interim, there is nothing much to do but speculate. That gets old a little fast, but Beckett would have taken the speculation getting as old as the Ancient Mariner – no, Methuselah – over what happens next.

“Beckett!”

“Yeah? What is it, Espo? We got that footage?”

Espo looks at her sidelong. “Course not. Takes a few hours, Beckett. You know that.” He grins, evilly. “I wanna know who’s sending you presents.”

Beckett looks at the parcel on her desk that she’d forgotten when the body dropped.

“No idea.”

“C’mon, open it.”

“Why don’t I get presents?” Ryan says plaintively.

“You ain’t as pretty as Beckett,” Espo flashes back. Beckett winces. It’s very rare for any of the team to make that sort of a comment. She’s too good at the job. Except today she’s failed to spot an expanding bullet, hassled everyone far too early though she knows that it takes longer and there is no point harassing till at least they’ve got the body back to the morgue, and she generally needs to stop and cool down.

She regards the package suspiciously.

“C’mon. It won’t bite.”

“Come on, Beckett,” Castle says happily. “Open it up. How can you leave a parcel without opening it?”

“Remember the dead body? That’s how. Priorities.” Castle subsides at the snap, for all of two seconds. Then all three of them are crowding round the desk. Beckett gives in to the unspoken pressure and rips the cardboard open.

“ _Plumbing for Dummies_?”

“What the hell, Beckett?” comes in synch from Ryan and Esposito. Castle has a mile-wide shit-eating grin on his face.

“Thought you’d need it,” he says happily.

“Why’d you think that, Castle?” Espo says, darkly. It dawns upon Castle that sending the book to the precinct may not have been one of his better ideas. Simultaneously, it dawns upon him that Beckett is frozen in place. Around about thirty-six hours too late, it dawns upon him that this is hardly conducive to keeping them secret.

“Because after you left the bar on Friday, Beckett spent an hour complaining that she needed to help her dad fix his plumbing.” He turns to Beckett. “What happened? And why didn’t your dad just call a service?”

Beckett recovers, though Castle is not reassured by the set of her shoulders.

“Dad thought he’d learn to be a plumber in case of layoffs. God knows why,” she says exasperatedly. “So he took a class and thought he could take the sink apart. It didn’t work. I spent the weekend helping him fix it.”

The boys look impressed. “I got a leaky faucet, Beckett. Will you come fix that too?”

“Sure I will. My call out fee is $150 for the first hour and $75 for each hour after that.”

“It can keep leaking, then.”

“Now how about we stop talking about my dad’s new career and go back to the important matters, like our dead man?”

The glare that accompanies her words sends Ryan and Esposito scuttling to their own desks. The look that Castle receives should have incinerated him on the spot.

“I’m sorry, Beckett.”

“It’s nothing,” she says, perfectly calmly, and turns to the case. She barely has time to emit another word that isn’t quite explicitly related to the corpse till the end of the day, courtesy of footage arriving early and lines of enquiry thereby popping up, and then it’s only _Goodnight_ , on a gaping yawn.


	38. Dreams in which I'm dying

Beckett goes home, tired and deeply dissatisfied with the day. Camera footage was helpful, but she needs prints, Lanie’s report, and a bit more about the bullet; and she feels that she didn’t exactly bring her top game to the park today. And then, of course, there was the book. Couldn’t resist, could he? Always the clown, in public.

He hadn’t even thought of the consequences. Why should he? There would be none, for him. Only for her: first, the boys’ joshing and ragging, but then it would inevitably leak out to the rest of the precinct, and then from there to the outside world. Rick Castle – celebrity, superstar and playboy – dating NYPD Barbie, who’s the inspiration for his next book. It’s a tabloid hack’s wet dream, reopening the box she’d hoped had been locked shut after the fundraiser. And gossip hacks dig, and ask questions, and drag up the past and the present.

It hadn’t even been deliberate, merely thoughtless. Stupid. Casual. And thinking that, deep inside where it doesn’t reach her conscious mind, it adds unseen weight to her belief that it’s merely _want_.

She changes, and goes out to run: looking for calmness and serenity in her old habits. She doesn’t need the dream, tonight: a long hard run will beat back the bitter taste of _not enough, not fast enough_ , and the equally bitter taste that it had been Ryan who’d remembered – and she’d forgotten: it would have been fine if she didn’t know she’d forgotten that because he is supposed to remember – about searching for the wallet. She doesn’t need to seek out the dark every time she’s a little raw, and if she looks for it too often she’ll never escape it: she’ll be found out and exposed and ruined: lost in a different dark. So she runs far and fast until she’s cleared her head and calmed her mind, and then she heads for home, to search out a warm bath despite the August heat, in her cool, serene apartment decorated in cool, serene pastels, and then she’ll sleep in her cool, serene sheets.

She doesn’t need it, she tells herself, and lies. She knows that if Castle – not Castle. He. Her anonymous, faceless dream-lover, who doesn’t exist outside her head and apartment – turns up and puts the slightest pressure on her, a touch or a kiss or a word, she’ll instantly give up and give in and be submissive kitten-Kat for him. She knows that if he tries to make things right she’ll accept it, simply to keep her route down into the concealing, saving dark. (Simply to keep him.) She can’t resist and she knows she won’t, if she’s given only the slightest push. But here and now, she’ll take a different route tonight.

* * *

Castle knows he’s screwed up. Worse, he knows exactly how. He’d promised her he would never tell anyone, and by playing the class clown he’s pretty nearly done just that. If there hadn’t been a few moments together, after the boys left, to finish their drinks (and all that then ensued) on Friday night, he couldn’t have carried off that saving lie. He’s also not wholly sure that the boys believed him. There had been a very perceptive look in Esposito’s eye, and he wouldn’t bet against a small “discussion” happening at the next available opportunity. Well, he’ll be prepared for that. For now, he needs to mend matters. Beckett’s been quiet and locked down ever since she’d opened the parcel.

He doesn’t get a chance. Footage arrives, actions are assigned, the team slides into its rhythm. There isn’t a moment when Beckett isn’t either working or with one of the others. He’s sure it’s all entirely necessary. He is also sure it’s a deliberate tactic. He doesn’t call it out, but sticks to providing coffee and theories in roughly equal quantities, just as he normally does. He’ll deal with it – with her – later, after they’re done for the day.

After they’re done, though, Beckett takes off like a scalded cat. She doesn’t take the book with her, either. Castle casually repossesses it, avoids Esposito’s meaningful look with an ease developed by years of avoiding the same look from an endless supply of teachers, and departs. He departs just as far as the Old Haunt, orders a beer and some snacks in lieu of dinner, and settles down to waste some time before he lets himself into Beckett’s apartment and waits for her to return. He is perfectly certain that her first act will be to go for a run, and her second a bath. He is perfectly certain, too, that speaking to him is not on her to-do list for today.

Well, that’s too bad. Speaking to her is very high up his. Right at the top, in fact. He is not letting this relationship founder on misapprehensions again, after the disaster of the last three weeks. He’s only just got her back, and she is not running off again. His kitten’s paws will be firmly buttered. He flicks through the plumbing book, decides that he’s not interested in a career change, drinks his beer and picks at the snacks, trying to work out what to say. Or indeed whether to _say_ anything at all, given that kissing her, or holding her, seems to work so much better than talking.

No. He’ll start with words, because he can’t keep using her own predilections against her like this. It’s not helpful. Though… it’s odd that she hadn’t had more of a reaction to him telling her how he felt, on Friday night. She only really seemed to get it when he’d pulled her in and kissed her hard. Talking first, then, and if that doesn’t get his point – _apology, Rick, you screwed up_ – across, he’ll consider other means of communication.

Castle strolls out and saunters down the street to find a cab, arrives a tactical distance short of Beckett’s block, and walks the last few yards in no particular hurry. He reaches her floor, dismisses any thought that this might be pushing his luck, raps briskly on the door and, no answer being forthcoming, uses his key to go in. He then improves the shining hour by making himself coffee and sitting comfortably but unobtrusively in the main room. He resists a very strong temptation to look through the papers on her desk, which would be creepy and not appropriate at all. He would really much rather know that Beckett had put her gun away before they start this discussion: it’s not beyond imagining that she’ll shoot him partway through, and if she even suspects that he’s been near her desk she’ll shoot him first and not ask any questions at all.

By the time Beckett shows up, it’s close to full dark and Castle is at once both fretful and frustrated by her absence. Matters do not start well.

“What the hell? What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you to get home.

“Why?” It’s not a friendly question.

“I wanted to talk to you and you ran off.”

“Maybe that should have told you I didn’t want to talk to you.”

“Well, after last time when I waited to see if you’d be ready to talk and all you thought was that I wasn’t interested, this time I want to talk to you before you start believing that all over again.”

There’s an unimpressed noise. Castle notices Beckett’s style of dress, and rapidly draws the correct conclusion.

“Where have you been?”

“Out.”

“Out where? Running?” He puts a twist on the words that makes it clear he’s not wholly convinced. That particular answer does nothing to relieve his frustrated fretfulness, and his need to love her, have her be his kitten, or simply have her be his.

“Not your problem.” The snap in Beckett’s voice recalls him to reality. He came here to apologise, not to fight.

“No, it’s not,” he admits, covering his reluctance to accept that it’s not his problem if she’s off running in the dark. She’s supposed to run to him if she’s looking for the dark. Saying this will, however, be entirely unhelpful at this point. Later…well, that might be a different matter. First, however, he will try to make this right with words. “I came to talk to you. Apologise. I thought the plumbing book would amuse you.”

“Ri-ight.” That’s dragged out in a wholly cynical drawl. “And are the future comments in the gossip columns supposed to _amuse_ me too?” The cut-glass edge on that statement should have opened his throat. He stops hard before he answers in kind, or worse, silences her by kissing her.

“No! I don’t want that. I don’t want this to be out there. Well, I don’t care, but you do, so I don’t.”

“Really.” That drops like a cannonball. “You’re not exactly doing a great job of stopping it, are you?” Castle winces.

“Okay, I get it. I screwed up. Sending it to the precinct was dumb, and I’m really sorry I did that, but if I hadn’t… if I’d sent it here… would you have liked it?”

There’s a disgruntled mutter. It’s less hostile than a moment ago, the improvement coming hard upon his apology, but he couldn’t call it precisely friendly, or inviting.

“Yeah,” she eventually says, grudgingly. “If you hadn’t sent it there.”

“C’mon, Beckett. I came over to make it right. Least you can do is accept the apology.”

Castle stands up, and takes the opportunity to pull Beckett gently towards him and then, as he sits back down, on to his knee.

“What are you doing?” she snips.

“Saying sorry,” he says, and kisses her softly. “I’ll be more careful of you.” Beckett emits a soft, almost-unhappy little noise, and doesn’t answer.

“I brought the book for you,” he says, wondering why she’s sounding unhappy, and gestures at it. Beckett takes the opportunity to slip away from him on the pretext of flipping through the book.

Castle is not impressed by that. Sticky and sweaty she may be, but in her shorts and a rather form-fitting tank top, she’s appallingly sexy: the lithe muscles beneath the glistening skin lean and strong and shapely, and a reminder to him in every inch that this fierce ferocity _lets_ him own her and dominate her and turn her to a soft submissiveness. He could take her, in a fight, but he’ll never need to prove it: she doesn’t want to fight him, she doesn’t want him to force her to submit. She only wants to surrender, and only to him.

She should be sitting – no, she should have stayed curled up in his lap so he can pet and cosset her. But she didn’t. She ran off. His frustration and worry get the better of him, and he tugs her back and pulls her down and kisses her much harder, not apologetically at all: one hand at her neck holding her in, one on the bare skin between tank and shorts. Just like every other time, as soon as he pushes, she concedes; as soon as he exerts the slightest level of domination, she surrenders, falls into it. Into him.

“You were going to have a bath, weren’t you? Hot and wet and silky-smooth.” She nods, tucked against him. “Soothing and relaxing.” This second nod is more reluctant. She doesn’t want him to pretend it’s more than it is. “I can think of plenty of other ways to soothe and relax you.” He gazes down at her, eyes dark and focused only on her. “But I think we’ll start with the bath.” His voice has slipped into the deep, commanding, velvet-over-iron intonation that has always persuaded her to fall into his arms and words and body. She doesn’t even try to stop herself plummeting. She can have this, do this right. All she needs to do is collapse into her dream-world with her dream-lover.

It’s all a dream when a bath appears and he uses it to bring her screaming in satisfaction and then washes and dries her to leave her still soaked and trembling with renewed need; it’s all a dream when he decorates her with collar and cuffs and pinions her hands with the short chain behind her; it’s all a dream when she kneels naked in front of him and then uses her mouth on him at his command; it’s all a dream when he leaves her kneeling there with her head pillowed on his thigh and plays with her till she’s desperate again. It’s still all a dream when his big body covers her and he takes her down into delicious oblivion, then pets her for a while and tells her he doesn’t want to go, but has to, but he won’t leave for a little bit, insisting on holding her close until she falls asleep in his arms.

It’s not a dream when she wakes alone in the night to find herself unheld; when she showers and cleans herself and then sits in solitude in her living room, staring unseeing at the soulless city lights, wishing that she had the courage to tell the truth and walk away from this: one more dead-end relationship in her dead-end life. But she wants it too much; she needs it; she’s addicted to the dark (she’s addicted to him) and she can’t give it up. Just like she can’t give up her mother’s case. Both dead ends, just like the whole of her adult life: one long series of dead-ends.

It was only a dream. She returns to her bed, strips and changes it so that there’s no trace of anything that might remind her that this wasn’t a dream. When the bed, and she, are cool and clean, she curls around a fresh pillow and sleeps, dreamlessly.

If it’s only a dream, it won’t hurt when it’s over. Dreams can’t hurt you.

Only the living can do that.

* * *

Castle is reasonably satisfied with the evening. He apologised in words, and only then did he play with his kitten, who, just as he had hoped but not entirely expected, had been a little more pettable, a little more cuddled in afterwards. He had only left because he had to, being required at the loft at some ungodly hour to see Alexis off to camp for the rest of the summer. He hates it when she’s away, but she enjoys it, so he puts up with it. But even so, he wishes he hadn’t had to leave Kat. He feels very strongly that he needs to prove something to her: possibly that he really does love her.

In the precinct the following day, the case is breaking wide open, largely thanks to the footage the boys had found, the wallet that the canvass had found, and the prints that CSU had found. It’s just as well. The next body has already dropped, and only bringing in the first killer is giving the lab, Lanie and uniforms time to work their collective magics. Then there’s a third, in the same day, each of the cases simple and brutal, not requiring the team to apply their particular brand of harsh intelligence and off-the-wall quirkiness.

The boys relish the chance to stretch their detecting muscles and try to prove – show off – how clever they can be. Beckett seems to Castle to be allowing it, stepping a fraction back, not competing with their swiftness to instruct uniforms, or to seek the answers from Lanie and CSU. All through the day the team – and it appears to Castle to be right back to being a team – does what it does best: solves murders.

Castle doesn’t expect to evade the twin-track interrogation from Ryan and Esposito for long, and sure enough he doesn’t. They corner him in the break room mid-afternoon.

“Okay, Castle, what’s goin’ on between you an’ Beckett?”

“Nothing that wasn’t going on six months ago.” He’s quite proud of that answer. There’s a short pause as the boys count back – on their fingers. Ryan gets there first: Esposito being better at counting shots in targets.

“March… no, February. You weren’t here in February. Or March.”

“Exactly,” Castle points out, smugly. It’s not even a hint of a lie. Perfect truth, and perfectly misleading. Esposito scowls blackly.

“I still wanna know what was goin’ on Friday night.”

“Sure,” Castle says blandly. “Tonight? Where d’you wanna go?” His total insouciance is clearly a surprise to the boys.

Espo names the same sports bar that they’d gone to the very first time, to general agreement, and the intimidation party breaks up. Castle’s perfectly sure that he can deal with the boys without either lying or giving away any of the true situation – even the version that could be printed in a family newspaper. He won’t even reveal that much. He makes himself a mugful of coffee, then thinks and makes another for Beckett, who is glaring at the evidence and clearly needs solace in the form of caffeine.

The balance of the afternoon passes. Uniforms bring in the perpetrator of the third murder – they’re still looking for the second one – and Ryan and Espo call dibs on interrogation before Beckett has managed to open her mouth. Castle decides that watching the boys interrogate – which he almost never gets to do – would be a good idea to allow him to expand the repertoire of the Roach pairing in Nikki Two, which he ought to start planning, and wanders off to Observation in the expectation that the grilling won’t take long.

It doesn’t. It’s nasty, brutish and short. Very short. Confession obtained with record-breaking speed, the boys return, triumphant.

“Got him,” Espo says, with vicious satisfaction. “Spilled his guts all over the table. Easy.”

“Record time,” Ryan says happily. “Just time to write the report before quitting.”

“Nicely done,” Beckett says, smiling. “Let’s see if you can do the report that fast.”

“Sure we can. We got an incentive.”

“Incentive? Castle’s four-dollar words rubbing off on you?”

“No, but he’s buying the beers for the three of us tonight. Boys’ night out.”

“Shift starts at eight. If you’re hung over, don’t look for sympathy here.”

There’s absolutely no change in Beckett’s voice, tone, posture or expression that Castle can detect. She doesn’t seem bothered in the slightest that the three of them are going off together, though her commentary on their likely activities is sardonic in the extreme. This time, of course, they’ve _said_ they’re going for a boys’ night, so she’s hardly likely to want to come along. The last thing they hear is a particularly sarcastic comment on how poorly Ryan holds his beer, and an instruction to Espo to make sure the other two get home safely, which is thoroughly insulting.   He’ll deal with that piece of naughtiness in some very mutually pleasant ways, soon.


	39. Fatal flaw

Beckett returns to the case, there being nothing much else to do. She doesn’t feel like calling Lanie for a girls’ night. She doesn’t want her beer flavoured with testosterone today. She’s not good company for anyone tonight, and while Lanie won’t mind that, having herself been poor company in the past, in fact, she doesn’t really feel like any sort of company, so it’s just as well the others went out. It’s been a little irksome, listening to Espo and Ryan showing off about the speed of extracting a confession, but she knows they’re entitled to. They’d done a damn good job. Didn’t need any input from her, really: they did it as fast as she could have. Just the way it needs to be, if the team is going to keep its rep as the best in the city. They’ve got to be able to take some cases without her input, and that’ll double their capacity. They’re going to need all the capacity they’ve got if this level of murder continues. She’s proud of their abilities and how the team has improved over the last four years. Which, while all terribly logical and reasonable, doesn’t really make her feel any better.

She’ll go and spar for a bit, work out, go home, maybe run. The peaceful evening she’d intended to have yesterday… with a few minor alterations. Since there’s no chance of interruptions, she’ll dig into her case. This one’s just hers, and it needs her skills. The boys, and the current cases, don’t seem to. Not surprising, really, given that she’s been off her game for a couple of days. Actually, she’s been off her game for two or three weeks. She needs to get back on top of her life. She can’t afford to be so out of it that she can’t solve a simple shooting without the boys pointing out evidence she should have spotted. It may be a basic pop-and-drop, but the victim deserves justice as much as anyone. _Get your head in the game, Kate_.

She goes up to the gym and spends a good hour punching the speed bag, running through forms and drills, and then, in a burst of inspiration, goes to the range and takes out her really quite unwarranted, but still troubled, mood on some perfectly innocent targets. She doesn’t miss the bulls-eye on a single one, and feels much better as a result. It takes her back to years ago, when Esposito first showed up and it took them some time to become a team, takes her back to the evening they’d first sparred, then shot at targets, and somehow it had come together. It hadn’t seemed likely, before that, but on that evening they’d gelled as a team. Later, Ryan had joined them, and two became three: a triangle. Ryan and Esposito are, now, closer than she is to either of them, have been for quite some time, but that’s okay. As long as she gets her head back in the game, and she’s getting there, the team will be as tight as it needs to be. All three of them.

Back to how it used to be, before this year began. Top of the tree, top team. Top trio.

* * *

Castle settles himself comfortably into the booth and regards Ryan and Esposito without a qualm. He’s confident that he can get past whatever they think up by way of tag-team interrogation without lying. Plenty of misleading, misdirection, and outright sleight of word, but no lying. No telling Beckett’s secrets, either. He’ll keep her secrets, and he’ll keep her secret, just as he’d promised her he would. He smiles placidly, full of good humour, and raises his beer.

Surprisingly, it’s Ryan who starts. Castle had expected it to be Esposito, based on the team history and Espo’s general disposition to take the lead. He settles in for a round of good cop, bad cop.

What he gets is a round of bad cop, worse cop.

“You were all snuggled up to Beckett Friday.”

“Holding her hand. Leaning into her.”

“Getting us out your way so you had a clear field.”

“Din’t want us messing up your plans.”

“Soon’s you found out she didn’t have a boyfriend you were straight in there pretending to make it better.”

“Takin’ advantage of her bein’ upset to weasel yourself up to her.”

“Telling us you wanted to fix the team. Sure. You wanted to fix yourself with Beckett.”

“Your bright idea fucked up the team an’ upset Beckett and then you were there to make it all better for her. That how you roll? ‘Cause if it is, we don’t want you around.”

And that, in less than three minutes, is quite enough of that. Castle’s smooth suavity and calm evaporates like a snowball in an erupting volcano.

“Fuck that,” he bites. “You suggested it, Espo. Are you saying that you fucked up the team? I don’t hear you saying that. And Ryan, I didn’t hear you disagreeing with the plan. Like hell this was just down to me. The way I remember it, you were dead keen on finding answers for her. Both of you. Sure, it was my idea to look into the case, but if you pair of assholes had said no back when it would never have got off the ground. So what’s that make you? Are you both trying to destroy your own team so you can go sniffing after Beckett? Gonna try to share? Are you telling me you wanted a chance at Beckett?”

“No way!” Ryan ejaculates, appalled by Castle’s infuriated words. “She’s our boss.”

“That’s insulting,” Espo adds.

“And you weren’t? You outright said I’d deliberately fucked up the team to put the moves on Beckett. You really think I would do that? Well, fuck you both.” He stands to leave in one fierce, dangerous movement, as angry with the boys as he’s ever been with anyone in his life, fists clenched. “If you think that, I’m out of here. Out of the Twelfth, too. I can find another team to shadow if I need to. I don’t need you to write my book. I’ve got enough.” He turns towards the exit.

It dawns on the boys, horribly clearly, that they’ve gone a lot too far. Castle is dead serious in what he just said and his expression and the set of his shoulders doesn’t exactly indicate that he’s going to be persuaded back easily.

“Castle!” Ryan yells. It has no effect whatsoever. Espo takes two fast steps after him, grabbing Castle’s shoulder – and finds his hand removed with a wrist-breaking grip accompanied with an intimidating expression and growl of absolute fury.

“Get your hand off me.”

“Bro…” The scowl turns yet blacker.

“Out of my way, _Detective_. Unless you’re planning to arrest me?” The words are steel-sharp, diamond hard. Castle takes another step to the door. “You’ve no grounds, but lack of evidence didn’t stop you a minute ago, so I doubt it’ll bother you now.” Esposito winces.

“Okay, bro. We were outta line.”

“You’re damn right you were. Now get out of my way.”

Esposito, not a coward, gets himself in front of Castle. “No.” It takes all he has to stay in front, as Castle is giving an extremely good impression of an M1 tank. Ryan comes up, reinforcements in this war.

“No, we won’t get out your way,” he adds. “Cool down, man. Come back and have a drink. We didn’t mean that. I’m sorry. We just got a little… worked up. It’s all been off with Beckett since we told her we’d been looking at her case. ‘S not been right, and it’s screwed us all up.”

Castle growls blackly, and doesn’t move an inch back towards the booth.

“C’mon, Castle. I’m sorry. Chill. We’re just worried about her. She don’t need us all dicking around with this crap. She needs the team, an’ we need her _in_ the team.”

“If you walk off it’ll upset the balance,” Ryan adds. Castle’s scowl doesn’t improve at all.

“So I deliberately fucked up the team so I could split you up from Beckett a minute ago and now if I leave it’ll upset the balance? Don’t you think that’s a little inconsistent?” He takes another step towards the door, forcing Esposito to move or be walked into.

“Christ, Castle, get that stick out your ass. We said we were right outta line. If you walk out we’ll all be sorry. You don’t wanna do that. Cool your jets, sit down and have another drink.”

“We want the team to be four. It works like that. Dunno why, but it has. Right up till Beckett went Arctic on us. If you sorted it on Friday, then ‘s okay by us.” Castle’s vicious scowl loses some of its intensity. “Really. It was better today. Pretty much normal. Whatever was wrong with Beckett’s getting better.” Some, but by no means all, of the aura of fury dies away. Ryan turns him around. “C’mon. Next beer’s on me. Then Espo.”

Castle, still displeased and hardly inclined to let the boys get away with their mistaken and frankly offensive assumptions quite that easily, is begrudgingly persuaded back to the booth and to beer. It’s fair to say that Ryan and Esposito are a little surprised by the change in his disposition, never having seen him this riled up by anything up till now. Well, except that ex-Fed of Beckett’s, and that was hardly surprising, given how the agent behaved. Arrogant asshole, trying to muscle his way into their team. He’s not needed. He doesn’t fit, not like Castle. The conversation returns to neutral matters for a while, during which a sufficient quantity of beer is consumed to soften everyone’s tempers.

“So what did you say to Beckett to fix things?” Ryan asks in careful, definitely-not-implying-anything-untoward-here tones.

“Once I stopped her leaving – which, note, is why I was touching her at all –” It’s not a lie, it’s just a single step of truthfulness, where the whole truth would be around a thousand miles of explanation further on. “ – I explained that we just wanted to help, and we didn’t want to upset her. It took a while for her to be cool with that. And then we finished our drinks and she told me about the plumbing after that.” She had. Twenty-four hours after that, but still, after.

“Okay. An’ it worked. She was okay Monday, and she was better today. At least till you gave her that book. Don’t think she found it as funny as we did.” Castle notes the _we_ in that statement, and breathes an unheard sigh of relief.   It’s okay. The boys won’t push any further. The team’s back, his kitten-Beckett’s back, and all is well in the world. The team is tight again. All four of them.

* * *

When Castle’s wandered off, Ryan and Esposito don’t need to exchange words to collect another pair of beer bottles and contemplate the evening in companionable cop style. That is to say, by sharing evidence, supposition, and theories. Or, more briefly and accurately, gossiping.

“Didn’t expect that,” Ryan opens.

“What?” Esposito asks, the beer leaving him a little slow.

“Castle blowing his top. Never seen him lose it.”

“ ‘S okay. We’re all good.”

“Mm.”

“What?”

“Don’t think we should wind him up about Beckett. He’s a bit touchy ‘bout her.”

“Bit touchy ‘bout us sayin’ he’s interested? Bit late. He looks at her like she’s steak an’ he’s starvin’.”

“She doesn’t look at him like that.”

“She din’t shoot him either.”

“Huh?”

“For stoppin’ her leavin’ on Friday.”

“ ‘Kay…” Ryan muses. “Maybe…” Then he changes tack. “Maybe we should stay outta Beckett’s life.”

“She’s part of the team. Gotta keep the team tight. Stand for each other.”

“Yeah, like getting into her private business worked so well last time.”

“Good point, bro. But I gotta better one.”

“Huh?”

“Watch from a safe distance.” Ryan sniggers nastily.

“What for?” he asks.

“Oh, I dunno. Clues, evidence, that sorta thing. Proof there’s more to it. There oughta be. An’ if there ain’t, it’ll still be a good show. Like I said back when, better ‘n Shark Week.”

* * *

Castle, with a final remnant of common sense, goes home, rather than acting on his first, furious impulse, barely tamped down by the latter part of the evening. It takes him more control than he wants to admit to do so, rather than heading straight for Beckett’s apartment to relieve his feelings in some thoroughly primitive ways. He’s exuding the same dangerous aura of fury and frustration as he had the very first time he met her, but if he goes to her he will do something irrevocable and his last sane brain cell is telling him that she will spook. She is simply not ready to hear that he’s never letting her go. She knows he loves her, but eternity is a step too far just right now. She won’t believe that yet. She’s still adjusting to the first bit.

He can’t afford to scare her off now. He can’t imagine being without her. He needs to be careful: not over-protect, nor expose her secret to the world. But they _will_ go out. He had said so, and his Kat had agreed. She’d wanted to go dancing. He’ll arrange it – no. He’ll ask her if she wants to.   He can be careful of her: avoid stepping on her insecurities. They can talk about it tomorrow – when the boys aren’t around. They’re just a little too curious, and if they’d had suspicions, his reaction probably hasn’t allayed them.

He channels the thought of going dancing into a seriously focused search of possible places for discreet dinner and subsequent waltzing, and some time later has achieved both a short list and serenity. Well, some serenity. He’d be a lot more serene with his kitten next to him, or under him, or in bed with him in any alignment at all.

* * *

Castle crawls out of bed sluggish from lack of sleep and lack of Beckett. It’s late – then again, by the time he’d managed to sleep it had been so late it was early. He’d not been able to write, but since he’d not been able to sleep either he’d been reduced to on-line games, punctuated by sips of whiskey. Neither the lateness of the hour nor the whiskey had improved his scores or his insomnia.

It’s no consolation, when he eventually achieves the bullpen with coffee in hand (his third, and no doubt Beckett’s twenty-third), to see that Beckett looks a little tired too. Still less is it helpful that another two pop-and-drops hit and they’re all chasing round the city to try to find the data, well into the evening. And the final straw is when all of them decamp for the evening, far too late, and Beckett disappears into the night for home before the boys are sufficiently out of the way that he has a chance to talk to her about anything at all, never mind the prospect of dancing.

He tries to call, but her phone goes to voicemail. He concludes that she’s in the bath, and fantasises darkly about Beckett, baths, and bonds, in all sorts of combinations.   He’ll give it till tomorrow, and then if he hasn’t managed a private conversation, he’ll go round.

* * *

There are no new murders the next day, which is just as well. The team is flat out with lab reports requested days ago, phone records and yet more camera footage. Ryan’s eyes are almost square with screen watching; Espo suggests that he’s going to date the girl on the end of the Verizon helpline, since he’s spending so much time talking to her they might as well be dating, and besides which her voice is sexy.

“She’s probably a bit older than you think, Espo.”

“You can be her toyboy,” Ryan says mischievously. “You might need to scrub up a bit. I’m sure Castle can give you dress tips.”

Espo scowls at them all.

“I don’t think Espo would suit Armani,” Castle says. “He’d do better with a German designer. Hugo Boss, maybe. He’s built too solidly for the Italians.” Beckett rolls her eyes, but her lips are quirking. Ryan sniggers. Espo growls and scowls.

Everyone returns to chasing killers and catching clues, or possibly chasing clues and catching killers, or killing clues and chasing catches, or… This is not helpful. It’s a distraction technique, to take his mind off Beckett. She looks a little tired, still: somehow thin and stretched. And yet she’s eating: breakfast and lunch, and he’s never known anyone who can put away as much coffee with as little effect. She hadn’t seemed thin, at the weekend, and she’s not the sort to crash diet.

The day is frantic, again, but this time when the boys leave Castle doesn’t. Beckett doesn’t notice, mainly because Castle has ensured he has whisked himself into the restroom so that the boys don’t notice either. For a few crucial minutes, just long enough for her to refocus on her papers and case, she can’t see he’s still there. He spends some moments washing his hands and cooling down, not entirely metaphorically. Parts of him had been very overheated, for most of the day.

When he prowls quietly out from the break room, she’s lost in thought, looking at the same evidence that she’s been looking at for the previous two hours. Nothing new has arrived since four, and it’s past eight now. Making her stop won’t hurt the case, and her staying on won’t achieve anything more. She needs a break, and she needs to eat. And he needs her to come home with him. Scratch that. He just needs her.

“Time to stop, Beckett.” That opening bid is matched and then raised by a glare.

“I’m busy.”

“Not that busy. It’s late. You’ll think better tomorrow. C’mon. Time to go home,” he says briskly. He’ll start with the polite version. Beckett shakes her head, back to looking at her desk.

“I need to do this. See you tomorrow, Castle.”

Castle drops the polite version like a brick. The air around him thickens and he consciously projects the same dangerous, powerful maleness that he’d done some months ago, sitting in his study. “No. You won’t find gold in those papers tonight.”

Beckett goes very still, eyes wide, the predator suddenly transformed into prey. It’s almost as if she’d never believed he would use that on her. Castle leans, half-sitting and facing her, on the edge of her desk, far closer than he’d dare in daytime, hard muscled legs almost close enough to touch hers, hands loosely in his lap, gaze fixed on her. “There’s nothing new there that you haven’t looked at a hundred times already. Take a break, start again tomorrow.” He pauses. “Time to go home,” he purrs softly, darkly; inaudible a foot away. “Kitten.”

She looks at him, still silent and motionless, that same slight uncertainty and softening that means she’s dropping into his game, kitten under the tiger’s paw. There’s only the two of them, there’s no-one to see, and only she is conscious of the sweltering, swirling tension wrapping around them. Heat and heaviness weight the air, and under his hot eyes she chews her lip.

Beckett shivers. She shouldn’t be doing this. She should stay, and keep searching, and bury herself in the case: solve it faster, harder, simply better: but there’s nothing here that she hasn’t read a dozen times. She knows that she should have left when the boys did, slept, taken a rest, but the unacknowledged need to prove – to herself? To the boys? – that she’s still as good as she was, to get her head back in the game, has kept her here. And now she’s been called on it, and she can either safe-word or submit.

No other option.

“Okay,” she says, and gives in to her own needs.

 


	40. The little death

Castle doesn’t touch her as they leave, and doesn’t speak till they’ve exited the building.

 _There won’t be anything that would let anyone guess. Nothing._ He’s being very, very careful to stick to that, it seems, after the idiocy of Monday. Just as long as no one sees his eyes up close. Those eyes would let anyone guess that there’s more between them than should be between a detective and her annoying shadow. Not the truth, though. Still never the truth, that it’s a dark dream, an addiction born in a single heated night, that’s grounded in need and want and the physical: where he dominates and she submits and both of them want it that way, without any deeper commitment at all.   Just a dream, just as it’s always been a dream.

“We’re going to go to yours, pick up some stuff for you, and go to mine. The family is away. It’ll just be us.” His voice drops again, to a predatory growl. “I want you to come to my home. Not just at yours.” _Want_ , again. She knows he wants, just as she knows he doesn’t want more. She knows how much she wants it. Wants the dream, that is. Wants the place she can’t lose, or fail. Wants to be out of reality.

That’s why she left the bullpen with him. Looking for the dream and escape: respite from the real world, where however hard she works, however often she succeeds, that one failure attends her. A night with the dream will help her get her head back in the game.

And so she simply closes off any thought of anything other than the dream, wishes briefly for both of them to be concealed in black silk masks, and, that wish being unattainable, sinks without trace into a state where the man beside her isn’t someone she works with or might care for. Later, as soon as they’re in his loft, she’ll want him to do as he pleases; and she will, she is sure, enjoy all of it, anticipation bleeding through her veins. She ignores the small empty sore place in her chest. It’s not relevant, not real.

Just as long as she doesn’t remember who he is, or who she is, or what she’d briefly thought they might have had, she’ll enjoy all of it.

Castle, having extricated Beckett from the precinct and then further extracted her from her own apartment without any difficulty at all except on his part, since he had wanted to kiss her into Jell-O as soon as they shut her door, is perfectly happy. She’s right where he wants her to be, next to him, and coming to his loft and into his world. He’s a little surprised how much he wants her there – after all, she’s beautifully his anywhere outside her job, and why should it be important that it’s _his_ bed not hers? – but now he can bring her there. A taste of things to come.

He manages to control himself until the moment she walks through his door and he shuts it behind her – and then spins her back and traps her against his door and simply possesses her: kissing her as if she’s the last, the only, woman in the world. Perhaps, for him, she is.

He invades her mouth, taking and owning and pressing into her, showing her the depth of his desire; she opens her stance immediately, surrendering to his forcefulness. His hands cup her face, hard fingers holding the base of her skull to keep her against him, and she melts and flows into him. He kisses her more slowly, deeper, bringing one hand down from her face to her shoulder, beginning to slow this up, to start the game, to make her only his, any way, every way, he can. He undoes one single button, and traces a wet lick of tongue over her throat, and down. She sighs, and tips her head to give him free access, the way a small cat does for a much larger one, the way any predator does for the pack alpha. It’s only here, only him.

The small act of submission fires him, opening her shirt buttons to trace further down, heedless of the plain cotton beneath, holding her against the door so that he can touch and play as he pleases, taking her hands in his and pinning them out of the way, slightly rough in the way she likes, using size and weight and muscle to keep her under his control. Her dress pants open, fall away; plain cotton again and this time he notices and briefly wonders, but he’ll change that later because she’s _here_ , she’s _his_ , and before any games he simply has to show her, take her, keep her. Love her.

“You’re mine, Beckett,” he growls into her neck. “Always mine.” He doesn’t realise that for the first time in this situation he’s used her daytime, precinct name, and believes her shudder to be her body’s response to his.

“Not Beckett,” comes faintly, but he doesn’t notice: kisses her again and the words she might have said are gone, the instant when she might have fallen out of the dream is gone, and instead she slips further under the surface and forgets the moment. He doesn’t have, or want, a Beckett: he – this dream-lover – has, and wants, a pet: the kitten he calls her. He doesn’t want the alpha daytime Beckett, and here and now neither does she. She opens her body under his hands stoking her higher, welcomes him in, filling her in one hard movement: her nails in his shoulder and his mouth conquering hers, the hot rhythm of their bodies and the flaring explosion of release; and after, his big body around her, supporting her, holding her to him; as if it were protection. As if it were.

He carries her to the couch: he likes carrying her, cuddled against him and soft; lax from being loved; a way to show her that he’s strong enough to stand with her, and for her, when she needs to set her burden down. He’ll be her protection, when she needs it; and on the thought cossets her more securely into his lap and arms, arranging her head into the crook of his neck and petting her, still in plain cotton that he’d simply pushed out of the way and – oh _shit_.

“Beckett,” he says, panicked right out of the scene. “Beckett, I didn’t use a...”

“Implant,” she murmurs, for a second awake, “ ‘s okay. Liked it,” and snuggles back into him.

Apparently that’s it. Still, it takes him a little time to calm down. He’s _never_ casual about prophylactics. _Never_. It’s too dangerous, and too stupid. He cuddles and cossets and pets for a while, stroking gently, idly playing with her hair, not consciously realising that the soft aftercare is calming him at least as much as it’s soothing his kitten, that the mere fact that she’s there in his arms and tucked against his chest is grounding him, restoring him. He plays for a little longer, content.

“Why this, kitten,” he asks after a while, indicating the plain cotton. “I thought you’d bought some you liked better.” She shrugs. “I’ve still got the ones I bought you. I want you to put on something nicer, that I’ll choose now, and then you’re going to dress in it. And then we’ll play.”

Kitten-Kat stretches languorously. “Yessir,” she husks, and offers her stretched-out body up to him first, making a little disappointed noise when he doesn’t respond.

“No, pet. Not till later. First, you need some proper clothes.” He smiles wickedly. “Pretty clothes, that show you off to me.”

He takes her into his bedroom and plucks a series of bags from the back of a very oversized closet, turning back to find her looking at the room. “You haven’t been here,” he muses. “Your first time. Don’t worry, kitten. I’ll make it good for you.” He leers villainously and obtains a half-flirtatious glance in return, followed by a soft, seductive smile. “Now…” He tips the bags’ contents on to the bed and selects a deep green silk and lace confection. “This one. Green, to complement those cats’ eyes of yours. Go and put them on, and come back.”

It’s lucky that he’d cleared the rest away again before she slinks out. For a few seconds, he can’t speak or think. He’s never seen her in a strong colour, and the emerald is utterly perfect: setting off her cream skin and elegant curves, the fragile lace drawing attention to the swell of her breasts, the flow of her waist into slim hips and those astonishing legs. He swallows, and then simply enjoys the view as she slithers sensually across the bedroom towards him.

“Stop.” She does, a couple of feet away. He stands to lock the collar and thin silvery chain around her neck, sits back down and surveys her.   “Better,” he says possessively. “That’s how you’re supposed to be. Aren’t you?

“Yes…sir.”

“Come here.”

It’s all changed, now. The atmosphere is heated, darker. Castle’s taken on the aura of hard masculinity and sheer dominance that he first had back when, on a dank January night in a dark anonymous club, when he’d been unable to write and had found inspiration where he least expected it. She takes an obedient step forward, the links of the leash glinting in the light.

“Give me the leash.” No softness now, no petting: it’s perfect. She hands it over, and he tugs, an unspoken command, and she steps forward again, stands.

“Another step. Stop. Feet apart.” She’s athwart his knees. “That’s better. Remember this, kitten? What comes next?”

“I do,” she says, and smirks.

“Just for that insolence, you don’t. What are the rules?”

“No touching, no coming.” He nods once, sharply, and rapidly slides one finger over the silk between her legs.

“That’s right. No matter how much you want to. You’re mine, and you do what I tell you. You’re all wet already, just for me.” His finger slides again. “You want more. You want me to slip a finger into you; feel you tight and hot and soaked around it; fill you. Don’t you?” She nods. He pulls her closer, her stance widening as she moves forward across his thighs, mere inches from his chest, his wicked, mobile, mouth, currently set firmly. “My possession.” His hands settle on her waist, and his thumbs flirt with the undercurve of her breasts. “Mine to play with, however I choose.” His hands slide up, and over, palming and moulding, rubbing across her nipples and forcing a whimper; slide down and push her back from him till she’s no longer balanced over his knees.

“Kneel,” he orders, and pushes her very gently just a fraction downward to point the command. “There. He strokes her hair, slides fingers softly around her jaw. Kneeling in front of me, just like you should be. Today, I want you…” – he pauses, looking her up and down, hot eyes and cool expression, arousal evident – “half-dressed, as if you started to dress to please me, but stopped partway through. You want to please me, don’t you?” The soft tone imparts more danger than overt dominance would: the darkness swirling and swathing her, swallowing her down. She nods, not waving but drowning. “Good,” he purrs, a growl underlying it. “I like it when you wear pretty lingerie. I like it better when I’ve bought it for you.” He doesn’t say more. The implication hangs in the air. She licks dry lips, sitting on her heels, soaked and ready, nipples proud through the green silk, lost in the arousal caused by his words, and then leans forward, just a little.

“Uh-uh.” He pushes her back. “Stay still. Look at me.” The hazy, heated hazel eyes come up to meet his, wide and provocative as she peeps through long lashes. “Do you remember the first time, kitten? The first time you were mine? The last time you wore your own collar and I leashed you? Remember how you felt then?”

“Yes,” she murmurs. “Yes, sir.” She does, and she’s felt it every time since that he’s pulled her into the scene, hopelessly aroused, desperately needy, scorched and soaked and caught in his web of sensual speech. He’d trapped her from that very first time, caught in a dream that she can’t and won’t escape.

“You’ll feel like that all evening. You won’t come, for naughtiness and presumption. You don’t deserve to.” She mews, faux-unhappily, peeps up through her lashes. “That smart mouth should have thought before it spoke, shouldn’t it?” She mews another time, and wriggles, licking her lips again, a provocative pout following. He traces the seam of her mouth with a finger, delineating the full shape, tutting old-maidishly when she flicks her tongue out over the tip. “Such a wicked mouth. It just can’t help itself, can it?”

She smiles, cat-like and sensuous, and tongues her lips once more.

“You can’t tempt me like that, kitten.”

“No?” she breathes, silky sexuality on full display. “Why not?”

“It won’t work. I’m in control here. You are not.” He looks sternly at her. “There’s only so much you can get away with before I get tired of your naughtiness.” It’s a part of the game. He’ll never, ever be tired of her. She sits back and drops her eyes, waiting for him to carry on. He pauses for a few seconds, and then begins to play with her. Soon, she’s soaked and desperate, begging for everything he can give her, and he picks her up, tells her to stand and then plays till she falls against him, knees giving. Only then does he lift her into the wide bed, stretch her out and tease her till she’s right on the edge, holding out against his talented hands and mouth for much, much longer than he would have expected, holding out until he slides smoothly into her and can only then push her, and himself, over into completion.

He pulls her into him, wraps her in and holds her close and falls asleep with her there in his arms, in his bed, by his side: the place he needs her to be.

Beckett is not asleep. She waits until she’s sure he is asleep (He. No name.) and then slides silently out of bed, washes herself, goes back through the main room, carries on to the kitchen for a glass of water, and then sits herself in a comfortable armchair out of direct view, sipping slowly, wishing she had the courage simply to say no, to stop this; wishing she could get past her own addiction to his dominance, or maybe it’s just to him.

Alone in the dark, no-one can see her. There’s no-one to wonder at the pain in her eyes and her pinched face. _In too deep, Kate. In too deep._ It can only ever be a dream, and she needs the dream, and it’s all balanced on her ability to be the woman he – _wants_. If the only route to respite is not to fail at this… then she won’t fail. It’s – easy – not to fail. All she needs to do is listen, and obey, and fall into the dream when it comes to her.

The dream is all there is. She only needs to remember that. She only needs to ensure that she isn’t naughty, that he doesn’t tire of her just yet, that she’s what he wants. She should have more self-respect, enough to walk away from a dead-end affair which means little to him but far too much to her, but she can’t. Perhaps she would have been better to leave this dead-end life when she’d thought of doing so six months ago, but she’d _stepped back_ , and she’s not going to take that coward’s way out now. She is stronger than that, and whatever her life throws at her, she can take. She does not need that dark end.

She only wishes that she could muster enough self-respect to conquer this shaming addiction, this opium-dream, and walk away before she gets hurt any more. He’ll tire of her soon enough, and he’s just told her that if she’s not as he wants, that’s what’ll happen.

She returns to bed, curls herself round a pillow, just as if she were alone in her own bed, and wakes early to dress and leave for work, quietly, without disturbance. She’s putting her arms into her clean button-down when he turns over, reaches out, finds her gone, and opens one sleepy blue eye.

“Where‘re you goin’?” he slurs.

“Work. See you later.” She can’t stay. She can’t bear to be reminded that he’s real. She can’t afford to think that any of this has ever been real. She can’t afford to believe that this alter-ego Kat is really a part of her any other time, when she has to be alpha-Beckett everywhere else. And she absolutely cannot deal with this if he refers to her as Beckett here and now, because she isn’t, and wasn’t, and never shall be. This isn’t real, and it certainly isn’t permanent, and it can’t be who she is as soon as she walks out the bedroom door.

“Don’t want you to go. Come back and cuddle.”

“Gotta go. Shift starting.” Her pants are zipped. She picks up her small bag and her purse and slips away before anything more can remind her of who she’s leaving behind. As she closes the outer door only Beckett remains, all else locked down and away.

Castle, left alone, doesn’t feel like getting up just yet. He’ll get there in a moment, just like he’ll get to the precinct eventually. The pillows smell deliciously of his kitten-Kat, who really shouldn’t have left. But he’d promised he, or this, would never interfere with her work, so there is nothing he can do about it. He worms his way back into the pile of Kat-scented pillows and thinks contentedly that, since everyone is away for the next three weeks or so, he can play with his kitten as much as they like. He’ll talk to her about going dancing later.

* * *

Beckett is, not unusually, early to the bullpen, returning to the papers she had abandoned last night and finding that her mind is somewhat clearer. She starts to list the actions they need to take to find their missing murderer, and only looks up when the noise and fuss indicates that the boys are in and ready to roll.

Not just, it seems, ready to roll. There’s suppressed anticipation all around them.

“Yo, Beckett.”

“Hey.”

“Beckett, we found a new lead.” She looks up, sharply. “We went for a beer last night and got thinking” – she raises an eyebrow – “and one of the numbers he kept calling we traced back.”

“Dumbass din’t use a burner phone,” Esposito says with contempt.

“So we’ve got his address, and uniforms have gone to pick him up.”

“Good work,” Beckett says cheerfully. “Reckon you can break him in Interrogation?”

“No sweat.” Espo is confident.

“Go for it.”

She unobtrusively shoves her list into the trashcan. When, a few minutes later, they take off for Interrogation, she makes her way to the restroom and breathes deeply for a minute. Maybe if she hadn’t left last night, she would have seen that. Or maybe not, since she’d been looking at the same papers that the boys had for two hours longer and hadn’t seen it.

She has to do better than this. She _will_ do better than this.

And so she puts her head down and works as hard as she ever has, trying to prove to herself that she’s still the best, she hasn’t lost her skill, she isn’t failing. She’s totally, wholly, Detective Beckett. She doesn’t give the slightest hint that she is not confident in herself.

She thinks she hasn’t given the slightest hint.


	41. Dying to see you

Another couple of days pass, more bodies are dropping every day and the bullpen develops an overall atmosphere of frantic overwork as the teams struggle to cope with the level of new cases. August in New York City is attended by scorching temperatures and killing humidity; tempers are short and murders soaring. As fast as the team closes one case, another three appear: the multi-headed hydra of homicide. Castle tries to help, turning up every day: Alexis and his mother at camp and the Hamptons respectively, but the more he joins in the more concerned he grows about the whole Beckett situation.

It seems like small things, to start with.

She’s a little off in work. There’s an odd undertone to her decisions and commands, a tiny hitch when she hands out tasks. She’s working too hard, though so are they all. They’ve too much to do, and too little time to do it in, and Beckett is working every hour there is. He thinks that she’s sleeping in the break room, as often as not, and once or twice confirms it by surreptitiously sneaking back to the bullpen and, if not spotting her there, judicious use of her spare key, very late at night, and ignoring the little voice telling him this is stalkerish. He doesn’t call her on it: not when they’re so very busy; he’ll make it better, in due course. He still hasn’t managed a conversation about dancing, or indeed anything outside the cases except a single word, occasionally.

His family’s absence should give him free rein to bring his kitten to the loft, but he doesn’t suggest it half as often as he wants to: he won’t interfere with her work unless she’s obviously over-stressed and – workload notwithstanding – she’s apparently no more so than the others. On the rare occasions he does persuade her out of the bullpen again, she’s perfectly, totally obedient: wholly responsive to his hands and words and body. Whatever he wants, she does. Her physical reactions are unmistakably in favour of whatever game it is: she plays more than enthusiastically. And yet… and yet. She wants more roughness, and less petting; she starts cuddled in but somehow when he wakes in the night, or in the morning, she’s wrapped around a pillow, not into him. She’s fragile, brittle, on those few departures from the precinct, and she doesn’t once start the game. The day when she voluntarily wore his collar and came to dinner in it has never been repeated. Everything is down to him, and while that should delight his dominant streak, it worries him far more than it pleases him.

He can’t follow her mind. She lets him have her body and imagination for an evening or the night, more than happy to let him dominate and to be totally submissive, and the next day she’s as impermeable as granite, as alpha as they come. Everything is subsumed in working the cases, until he forces her to come away, gives her the word and takes her home. She never asks him to give her respite, only waits till he decides that she needs it. That worries him, too.

Gradually, he realises that she never uses his name. She never uses any name, only _sir_. It’s almost as if she wants him to be nameless, faceless, anonymous. That worries him still more. She accedes to anything he wants, and yet he would be happier if she were still the mischievous, humorous kitten who would be a little naughty, who had some spark in her eyes and smart retorts in her mouth; not this total obedience and perfect submission. There hasn’t been any of that since the first time he took her home to his loft.

And yet… and yet… It’s almost as if she thinks that she has to be perfectly in the scene: the perfect sub. He doesn’t know why she should think that, or even if she does: he’s always said that her safe word stops everything and he’s sure she’ll use it – he hopes she would use it. It’s all beginning to go wrong, but he has no idea why. It doesn’t matter what she does, now, he can’t imagine being without her; he’ll never voluntarily let her go, unless she says she wants to leave. But it seems like she’s uncertain: it seems like she’s withdrawing into herself, and he doesn’t understand that either: surely she knows how he feels? He had told her, back in the dark bullpen after a shattering argument: hauled her close and kissed her hard and told her. Surely she didn’t disbelieve him?

But there’s a thin cold spike of fear piercing his gut, because he thinks that she might be checking out. It still hasn’t dawned on him that he didn’t, in fact, tell her how he felt. He has never told her how he feels: he’s spoken only of _want_ , and never realised that he hasn’t once mentioned _love_.

* * *

Beckett is exhausted. She’s working all the hours she can, unwilling to waste the time in commuting from home to precinct, and therefore all too often sleeping in the break room. It’s the only way she can keep herself up to the mark, to make sure she’s not missing anything, to keep on top of the ever-increasing workload. She has almost no downtime, and she’s back to drinking coffee twice as strong as is sensible – at least when she’s making it. The coffees Castle supplies taste weak to her now, but she doesn’t mention that.

She isn’t mentioning a lot of things, right now. She isn’t mentioning that she’s sparring every other night, running through hypotheses, scenarios and action lists as she does. She isn’t mentioning that she’s going out running late in the evening, letting the stretch and burn of her exercise clear her mind and keep her functioning to the best of her ability. She isn’t mentioning that she’s mostly sleeping in the break room, and, thankfully, so far no-one has noticed. And she certainly isn’t mentioning that however hard she works, however many cases she solves, and however well the three of them, her team, are working together (with or without their added writer), she feels that she simply isn’t doing enough, well enough.

But sparring and running are keeping her calm, just like they used to, and gradually she’s getting faster, solving cases better, back to where she used to be.

It’s just as well.

Castle takes her back to his occasionally, which should help. It should be her release. Put everything down for a single night and then pick it up again the next day. But it isn’t working. She’s no longer relaxed by it: it’s become another area where she might fail, a dream that doesn’t help any more. So although she treats it as a dream, only a dream in which she can’t fail, because it’s a dream it doesn’t help. Dreams don’t solve reality, and the reality is that she’s still secretly unsure of everything: her abilities, her confidence, her team and, separately, Castle-in-the-precinct. And then there’s her strange not-relationship.

And as the consequence of all of this, she’s always protecting herself. Building her walls again.

She’s first in to the bullpen, last out. Or not out. Only she knows that she’s a little hesitant to give the boys orders, to hand out tasks and make the final decision: she does it anyway, forcing herself to be who she needs to be, and tries not to think that since they’re just as capable as she, she’s doing it fraudulently; she hasn’t got the right. The only right she ever had to give them orders was when she was clearly a better detective than they, and that’s no longer entirely true.

She’s working the cases so hard she’s got no time to think about her mom’s case, and anyway since she’s not going home she can’t look at it: can’t feed that addiction. She’s proving to herself she’s as committed, as dedicated to finding justice for others as she ever has been. If she left the live cases for the cold case she’d be failing, so she doesn’t. She can’t afford to. She hasn’t time.

On those couple of occasions when relief is offered to her, she doesn’t turn it down. But she doesn’t ask: doesn’t want time away from the caseload. She hasn’t time to be stressed, so she isn’t stressed: she hasn’t time to invite distractions. Besides which, she should be starting to try to get over this other addiction. He’ll tire of her soon, anyway, so she might as well minimise the problem. Still, all the time, deep down where she doesn’t hear it, where she can ignore the void in her chest that never quite leaves her, the same thought beats: if she fails at this, if she doesn’t get it right, he’ll quit. She can’t beat this addiction. She wants it and she needs it and she likes it too much to stop.

So she pulls together all her formidable control and directs it to _doing it right_ , whether that’s on the job or during… respite. Even during the all-consuming, flaring need that he induces, no matter how aroused she is, she never quite falls all the way down. She’s in control of her body, now, and all the time she is perfectly, totally, and wholly pleasurably obedient: only taking release once he’s allowed it. Since she enjoys everything her dream-lover can do for her, she doesn’t have a problem with that at all. It’s what they both wanted. So she continues to tell herself.

But still she protects herself. She’s back to thinking of this as a shameful addiction that isn’t really her. She thinks only of a dream-lover, and never names him. She tries to minimise the petting. He might want to fall asleep with her in his arms – and he does: he always wants to cuddle her and be close, as if it meant something to him – but as soon as he is asleep she extricates herself, washes his scent from her and then sleeps as she would when alone, or gets up and sits for a while, staring out the window at the city and running through her caseload. Dreams don’t change solitude, and they don’t solve reality. She can’t bear to think over the falsity of any sense of security she might find in his arms, if she were to stay there; she can’t stand remembering the difference between what is, and what she’d thought, once, might have been.

She’s pulled right back behind her thin, impermeable walls, and only the relentless pressure of the rising murder count has stopped everyone noticing.­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­

* * *

Another evening, ending another gruelling week, and finally the day hasn’t involved any new bodies at all. Or, if it has, they’re not Beckett’s new bodies. She is unbelievably tired, and it’s barely after six. Ryan and Espo suggest a celebratory beer, but she can’t face it. She’s too exhausted, and it’s not like they need her there to help them upend the bottle. She’s so tired she’s not even sure she could _find_ the bottle to upend. She declines, politely, and admits that she only wants to go home for an early night.

“C’mon, Beckett. Team drinks.”

“I’m too tired, Ryan. Maybe Monday, if there aren’t any more murders again. It’s not been as hot, the last two days. That should help.”

Ryan looks a little plaintive.

“Beckett, c’mon.”

“No,” she says definitively. Now she’s had the idea of solid sleep in her own bed, it’s all she wants. They’ve collectively picked up every last witness, potential perpetrator, and actual murderer on every case they have. There is almost nothing she can do tonight. Sleep – real sleep in her own cool bed, not the break room couch, not the painful need to stay separate from the unreality of her unwanted hopes, personified in the warm bulk from which she has to remove herself – seems the most desirable action in the world. Sleep, solitary sleep, in which she can knit up her ravelled sleeve of care; oppose and end her troubles. Cure her addiction, before she’s forced to go cold turkey.

“I’ll come out Monday, but not tonight. I’m too tired.” She forces a grin through a jaw-breaking yawn. “I’m not wasting good beer on the table top, Ryan. If I come out tonight I’ll fall asleep and knock over my beer before I’ve had more than a mouthful.” She looks round. “Take Castle with you. He’s worked nearly as hard as we have” –

Castle squawks offendedly.

“I’ve worked just as hard as any of you.”

“Okay, Castle – as hard as we have, then, so he deserves a beer too. I’ll see you all Monday.”

Everyone makes disappointed faces at her. Beckett remains unmoved. Then she rolls her eyes as they fail to move. “I’m not sleeping here, boys. Shoo.” She starts to pack up her papers as they collect themselves by the elevator. A moment later they’re gone. Five minutes after that, so is she.

Castle, Ryan and Esposito fall through the door of the nearest half-civilised bar and rapidly locate enough beer to make up for almost three weeks of hard work and no alcohol.

“Is it like this every summer?” Castle asks. “We haven’t stopped for breath for weeks.”

“It’s always worse in the heat. Heat waves bring the crazy out in everyone, and we get busy.” Esposito nods sagely at Ryan’s words. Beer bottles are raised in support of the thesis.

“Few days quiet wouldn’t hurt. We’re all tired.”

“Yeah. Even Beckett. Thought she was cast-iron. Never tired.”

“She better not be ill again.”

“Nah. She’s just been puttin’ in the hours. Night’s sleep, she’ll be fine.”

Castle wonders about that. It doesn’t take him long to decide that he should make sure that Beckett’s sleeping properly. He’s sure that there’s more wrong than the boys think, and he’s surprised that they haven’t noticed. He also thinks that if he catches his kitten in her territory then he might manage to keep her close for the whole of the night, and if that doesn’t work he is going to force an explanation out of her as to what’s wrong. If she’s backing off, he wants her to tell him straight, not this death by a thousand cuts.

In the interests of discretion, Castle consumes another couple of beers with the boys, during which period they say nothing of any use at all. They don’t appear to have noticed anything different about Beckett since after they’d tried to take him apart – and failed. Under the bonhomie of beer and boys-night, he’s steadily becoming more and more frustrated that he has to wait before he can _act_. When they finally drain their beers and, yawning though it’s not nearly eight yet, depart in the various directions of their homes, he goes just far enough south to look as if he’s heading to Broome Street, and then picks up a passing cab to Beckett’s apartment.

There’s no light in her windows, when he goes up there’s no sound through her door, and when he quietly lets himself in there’s no obvious sign of life until he hears soft breathing from the bedroom. He’s more relieved by that than he’d like to admit. He slips through the half-opened door, parts the curtains slightly and looks at her in the dim light, curled tightly round a pillow yet again, hair dark on another pillow. She looks very small, somehow, occupying far less space than she should. He takes his shoes off and pads silently up to her, peering at her face. Even in deep sleep, she looks unhappy, and when he tentatively touches the pillow, the top edge is damp.

* * *

Beckett had gone home immediately, too tired to consider yoga or running or even dinner, run herself the first bath she’s had time to have at home in days (the precinct showers have sufficed) and only just dragged herself out of it before she fell asleep in the soft bubbles and scent. She quite deliberately shuts away the idea that she had last bathed…elsewhere.

It’s been a good day, she reminds herself. They’re caught up with most – almost all – of the cases. She’s got her head back in the game: she’s just as good as the other two and getting better. All she needed was hard work and to recover from her flu and then the shock of new evidence on her mom’s case. Now that the team has established its new equilibrium, where she’s not in their pockets all the time, it’s fine. The team is tight at work, all three of them, and she’s got her own life to lead outside work which doesn’t rely on drinking with the same cops she works with all day. Well. She will have, now this busy spell is over. Maybe she should get a hobby. Take a class. Not plumbing. Kickboxing, or tae-kwon-do. Something hard and physical. Meet some people who aren’t cops. It’s not good for any of them to spend all their time together. Yeah. New people. Time to get on with the rest of her life. That way she’ll have something to fall back on.

She ignores the blurring of her vision and the dampness on her cheek, puts on her soft, old, comforting pyjamas and slips into her cool, soft sheets and the cool, soft semi-darkness. She’s asleep in seconds.

Next thing she knows, there’s a thin trickle of light on the floor from a gap in the curtain. There is also an arm around her middle. Said arm is holding her against a broad chest. This isn’t real. It can’t be real. She’s only dreaming. Still, she can’t afford dreams like this. She wriggles out of the grip and cuddles back down to her pillow.

Much to her surprise, the dream fights back. It attempts to unpeel her from her pillows and put her back where she had been. This is a silly dream. She doesn’t like this dream. She wants her comfortable pillow and no stupid, unattainable dreams. She attacks it with a sharp and forceful elbow.

About the point the dream yells and then pins her hands out the way while hauling her back into itself Beckett realises that this is not, in fact, a dream.

“What the hell? What are you doing here?”

“Can’t you find a new line? That one’s getting repetitive. I wanted to be with you.”

“Go away, Castle.”

“So you do know my name, kitten.” It’s more of a big-cat purr than anything else. “I thought you’d forgotten it.” He strokes over her back, comforting rather than sensual. “Let me hold you. It’s what you need.”

“Go away.” He can’t be here. He absolutely cannot be here. She’s too tired to deal with this, she’s too tired to play. She’s too tired to hold control and do it right. She simply wants to go back to sleep, alone. There’s nothing real here.

“Not going anywhere, kitten. You’re mine.” He wraps powerful arms around her and holds her swaddled against his unfortunately all-too-real and solid chest. “Now, why don’t you just remind yourself who I am again, and then snuggle in and go back to sleep?” He smiles lazily at the top of her head. She doesn’t have to see him to know that he’s smiling. She can hear it. She can hear his heart, too. Slow and calming and comforting.

And not for her.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

“And you shouldn’t be crying yourself to sleep. I think I’ve got better reasons for my actions.”

“I was not.”

“Liar,” he says softly. “Your pillow was damp.” He cuddles her in, half-protective, half-possessive. “What’s wrong, Beckett? Talk to me.”

But that’s exactly the wrong thing to say, reminding her that he doesn’t want Beckett, he only wants a kitten. And since he doesn’t want Beckett, which after all is who she really is, regardless of this _interlude_ , he’ll certainly never love her. She makes a frantic effort to escape him, all sharp knees and elbows, but he’s bigger and heavier and a good big ’un will always beat a good little ’un. He takes the easy option of simply putting all his weight over her and hanging on to her hands. She makes a determined but futile effort to get away.

“Stop that,” he says, still lazily, still stroking. “Stay put, kitten. I’ve caught you and I’m not letting you run off. I told you that. Now, what’s wrong? Cuddle in and let me fix it.”

Nothing’s wrong that him leaving won’t fix.

“I’m fine. Go away and let me sleep.”

“Won’t. Go away, that is. You can go back to sleep as soon as you like, but I’m staying right here.” He smiles lazily again. “And so are you. You’re staying right here with me.” He rolls over, takes her with him, and goes back to cuddling her against him.

“No. I don’t want you to stay. Let go of me.” She tries to pull away again.

“Beckett, what is _wrong_?” And on that, there is only one way of stopping this, proving that it isn’t a game or naughtiness but that she really means it. She can’t bear this dead-end affair any longer, and she’s finally found her self-respect.

_“Siamese!”_


	42. So much blood

_What?_

He drops his hands. She’s out the bed and the bedroom faster than lightning. He’s only an instant behind.

“Beckett, what is _wrong_?” He stops questioning. Even in the twilight-becoming-dark of the evening he can see the stark misery in her eyes. “Beckett, it’s okay. Whatever it is, it’s okay.” He takes half a step towards her, and she recoils from him. He stops, stunned and appalled, takes a full step backwards. “Don’t,” he emits, horrified. “Don’t do that. I won’t touch you if you don’t want me to. I said your safe word would _always_ work.”

He steps away, has an idea and goes and puts the kettle on, and stays as far away from Beckett as he can without actually leaving. It’s not just _something_ that’s wrong. It’s everything. She’s staring out the window, wrapped tightly around herself, stressed to the maximum – and he can’t do anything about it because he _promised_ that the safe word would always, always work.

All he can do is the one thing he’s been able to do no matter what: make Beckett coffee and stick around. So that’s what he does, confident familiarity with her kitchen masking complete terror as to what’s going on. He can’t bear the thought that she doesn’t want him any more. This whole affair is completely out of his control - and _he is not having it_. He will not put up with this slow-motion disaster: if it’s over she has to say so.

He puts Beckett’s coffee down on the table behind her with a sharp click that brings her out of whatever trance she’s lost in, turning round to see the coffee cup steaming gently. He sits down firmly in a different chair with his own coffee, and waits, letting his frustration with the situation flow out and invade the room.

She doesn’t sit down, and she doesn’t touch the coffee, and she doesn’t look at Castle. She goes back to staring out the window, into the dark night, her arms wrapped around herself. Holding herself together, he thinks. Breaking him apart.   He won’t be broken like this. Fury floods up in his throat, forcing the words out.

“All you had to do was tell me it was over. I’d have gone.” She doesn’t move. “Don’t have the guts to tell me? Never mind. I’ve worked it out.” The bitter words are almost exactly those she’d used to him.

“You’ll find someone else. Someone you won’t get tired of when they’re not what you want.”   She sounds dead, locked away.

“Not what _I_ want? You’re the one who’s checking out. I told you how I felt and you don’t seem to care. Well, it’s up to you. You’re either in or out, Beckett, and it looks like you’ve decided you’re out.”

“Don’t call me Beckett here. You never wanted Beckett here. You _wanted_ ” – the emphasis on the word weighs heavy in the semi-dark – “a pet in the bedroom and _research_ everywhere else. You got both. You’re getting tired of it. You said so. There wasn’t anything more than that and _that is not who I am_.” She takes a harried breath. “I stepped back from the edge and I will step back from this.”

“Wanted? _Wanted_? I told you I loved you.” He’s almost shouting, prowling the room but never getting near her. If he gets too near, he’ll haul her in and kiss her and show her exactly how much she means. But he’d promised her the safe word would always work. How does she think he only wants her, though? He’d _said_ he loved her.

“No, you didn’t.” Her voice is cold, suddenly: she’s frozen in place. “You wanted your _pet_.” She almost spits the word. “That’s all you’ve ever said. I’m not going down this dead end any more. This is not who I am.”

“You were there in the bullpen when I said it.”

“No. You said ‘I still want you. I haven’t stopped wanting you.’ You’ve never said anything else. That’s because there is nothing else.” The words fall into the empty air and hang between them.

Castle has quartered the apartment with his pacing, but her words pin him in place by her desk, unable to answer that, because – oh _fuck_ – she’s _right_ about what he had – _hadn’t_ – said. She’s right and he hadn’t noticed, he whose business is words: chosen and placed accurately to tell his readers what and how to think. She’s not going to believe him if he does repeat it now: she doesn’t believe him, and he still can’t lay a finger on her to prove otherwise.

“So what’ll you do instead, then? Bury yourself in work? Just like you used to? You won’t go back to the club I met you in, so what’ll you do when it’s all too much? Two lines in the paper: cop found drowned in the East River?” He turns slightly, looks down in the dingy streetlamp light, stops hard at what he sees. “Or not.” His voice is steely. “You’ll bury yourself in your mother’s case until you can’t find anything, and then you’ll snap. You said no-one should touch it, but you only meant _us_. You’ve been working on it all this time.”

“So what? It’s my case. It’s nothing to do with the rest of you.”

“We found something for you and you shut us all out.”

“You shut me out when you were looking. You didn’t need me involved then and I don’t need you now. It’s nothing to do with work.”

“Back to that idiocy, Beckett? I brought in experts you wouldn’t have a hope in hell of using. That’s why we found something.”

“So why didn’t any of you tell me you were looking at it? You didn’t want me involved, that’s why.”

They hadn’t wanted her to know, because she’d have killed them and hidden the bodies for it. Saying that isn’t exactly going to help.

“I tried to ask you. You chopped me off at the knees.”

“No, you didn’t say you were looking. You said you wanted to reopen it, not that you already had.”

“You said you had put it down. You hadn’t, though, and we all knew it. You just tried to hide it from everyone. Hid this, hid us. You spend your whole time hiding.”

“Like putting it out there would help? Let on that I was looking – and get fired. Let on about _this_ , and have my reputation trashed – and have no credibility ever again. Might as well be fired, because I’d never see anything but cold cases and the bullpen ever again. Not that it matters, because at least this problem’s done. You followed me until you realised the boys were more interesting, you thought you’d all prove you could investigate better than I could, and you were happy enough to fuck me for a while, but there’s nothing more. I should have quit weeks ago when I first worked it out.”

“Quit?”

“Just go. It’s over. You can leave the key, and take anything you brought.” She almost sounds bored, now. “No reason for you to be here.”

“Quit what? Quit us? Quit being a cop?”

“There is no _us_. There never was an _us_. It should have stayed a one-time thing and I should never have met you again.”

His heart snaps, and with it all the words he should have said – that he thought he’d said, weeks ago – spill out.

“So you’re throwing it all away without even listening. You’re full of bullshit excuses and it’s all because you’re scared. We looked into your case because we thought it would help you. We didn’t tell you because you would have shot us. You’re the one who thinks that means you’re a bad cop, not us. You just want to think that because you’re scared. You want to bury yourself in your case and forget about ever having a life because you’re scared of failing yourself or the victims or your mother or anything at all.” He takes a breath. “You’re scared of who you are and you’re scared of me because with me you can be who you are. It was never a one-time thing. Never. You are mine and I will not let you fall.”

She’s only a shadow against the streetlights: no movement, no sound, nothing at all: a phantom and as like to disappear.

“I don’t just want a pet. I don’t just want research. I don’t just _want_ you. I love you. Whether you’re kitten or Beckett or anywhere in between, I love _you_.”

She still doesn’t move.

“You keep saying I should leave because _you_ think I want to go. You don’t listen to me when I tell you I don’t want to. You don’t listen when I tell you you’re mine and I’m keeping you. It’s never about what _you_ want, it’s all about your misconceptions about what I want. You don’t know what I want and you don’t ask. You just keep trying to push me away. Well, it won’t work. I love you. You need me and I need you and I’m not letting you screw this up because you’re scared.” He takes another breath, on a roll now.

“You’re going to stop pretending you don’t care and stop pretending I’m a dream and stop pretending this is temporary. You care and you’re mine and I love you and I am keeping you and that is the end of it. If you didn’t care you wouldn’t be so upset that you think I’m leaving.”

And safe word or not, he takes two long strides and reaches her, puts hands on her shoulders and – stops. It costs him every ounce of control he has: he’s furious and frustrated and all he needs and wants and loves is his kitten, Kat, Kate or Beckett but he _promised_ her that the safe word would always, always stop everything instantly and he cannot fix this with sex. First, he needs to fix this fear of failure. He’d never noticed it before they interfered in her case. No. That’s wrong. He had noticed it, he’d merely forgotten… oh. Oh, no wonder she… Oh fuck. How did he forget that?

 _What does alpha-Beckett need to escape? Failure._ He’d thought it weeks ago. He’d _seen_ it weeks ago. Down in the dark – here in the dark – where she can hide from her perceived failure. Their poking into her mother’s case without her had proved – to Beckett – two things: she’s a failure as a detective and a failure as a team player. And then she’d thought that he’d walked out, and added failed relationship to the mix. _Can’t afford for anyone to see her supposed weakness._ Damned pride. He’d thought that, too, waiting in a deserted bullpen.

But she’d come back to him. Except she hadn’t, really. She’d let him have her, and then she hadn’t wanted cuddled or petted at all. She hadn’t wanted cuddled or petted since they’d looked into her case. She hadn’t accepted anything that might be soft, or loving, or comforting. She hadn’t asked for anything. She’d avoided anything that might have been construed as spending time together; anything that might have indicated a relationship. Because he’d only ever said he _wanted_ her. She’d translated that as sex, and then he’d compounded the error by telling her – she thought, he’d only meant it as a part of the game – that he’d get tired of her if she was naughty. So she hadn’t been. If she hadn’t been so insecure already it wouldn’t have mattered. And, naturally, she’d dragged herself back together again – on her own, no support – and decided that she was worth more than a dead-end affair. She’d barely accepted her personal preferences when she thought there was more than that, and then she’d taken less than a week to gather herself against a situation where she had first changed herself to try to stay with him and then decided she wasn’t having any of that nonsense.

She is worth far more than any dead-end affair where she has to change who she is, but that’s not what he was offering. He thought he’d been offering forever, as _exactly_ who she is. Beckett, or Kate, or Kat, or kitten: totally alpha outside the bedroom and mischievously submissive to his dominance in it. Tiger to kitten, and he loves and wants them all.

“I love you, Beckett. Any way you are.” He drops his hands and steps back from her. “If you want me to leave, I’ll leave. I told you your safe word would always work.”

When she doesn’t speak or look at him he takes it as a sign to leave, goes back into her bedroom and starts to dress, drops the key on the nightstand. She still hasn’t said a word or, he thinks, moved by more than to turn and stare out the window since he’d taken his hands from her. Her coffee is untouched on the table, cold. Her arms are wrapped around herself again. Holding her together, again.

She needs him to hold her together. He needs her to stop him breaking apart. But he can’t do this alone. He won’t do it alone. Decision time. Like the cat she is, she has to decide to come to him. You can’t own a cat. Or a Kat. Unless she wants to be owned, of course.

“When you’re ready to talk, call me.” It takes until he’s closing the door behind him before there’s even the smallest noise. But he closes the door, and walks down the hall, the elevator comes, and still her door hasn’t reopened, she isn’t calling after him. He reaches home, and still nothing.

Guess it’s over.

He’s gambled, and lost.

He’s trying to work out how to put his life back together, aided by a stiff Scotch, and trying harder not to go straight back to Beckett’s and shake her into being his kitten all over again, when his phone begins to ring.

* * *

Beckett is left standing, staring at the darkness, failing to comprehend anything that Castle has said. It’s too much. She’s failed at everything, now. He’d come to _take care_ of her. No-one takes care of her, no-one protects her. She’s as alone as she ever was.

The soft noise of the door closing forces a breath from her, but she can’t turn, can’t speak, can’t think. She’s used her safe word and it’s all over. She goes back to her bed and strips it of any linen that might remind her of anything at all, remakes it, struggling not to get the new bedclothes damp. The clock tells her that it’s not even ten, though she feels as if it’s the small hours, that time of darkness and nightmare. When she’d been small, her parents had soothed her nightmares, till she’d been big enough to refuse the nightlight and fight them herself. She’s been fighting her own battles ever since. She just wants someone to tell her it’ll all be okay in the morning, that it was only a dream.

She wants her mother, but that’s not going to happen. Only one way to find her mother again, and she _stepped back_ and she is staying stepped back. She is stronger than that. She is. But she wants her mother to hug her like she did to a very small Katie and tell her it’ll be fine.

She can’t have her mother. But her father is still there, and right now she needs someone who solely, wholly, unconditionally loves her without any of the _complications_ that everything else in her life brings. She’s propped him up through his troubles. Maybe, this once, he can help her through hers.

She picks up her phone and dials.

“Dad?”

“Katie?”

“I just called to see if the sink repair was holding.”

“Katie, that was over a week ago.”

“We’ve been pretty busy at work.”

“Katie, this is your dad you’re talking to. It’s nearly ten. What’s wrong?”

“I’m fine. Just wanted to check up on your plumbing.”

“Katie, _I’m fine_ didn’t work on us when you were four and it’s not working on me now. Something’s wrong. You can either tell me what it is or I can start making guesses.”

There is a short pause, during which Jim uses a sharp legal brain to draw the information he has already gleaned together.

“Okay then, what has your Castle fellow done this time? Have you shot him? Do you need a lawyer to bail you out?”

“He’s not my Castle,” Beckett manages, and then holds the phone away from her so her father can’t pick up on the misery. “I told him to leave.”

“Do I need to shoot him?”

“No.”

“Did you want him to leave?”

“Yes. No. Maybe.”

“That’s not exactly a definite answer, Katie.”

There’s another pause. Jim listens carefully to the quality of the unspoken words, and draws a few more conclusions.

“Do you want to come over?”

“No.”

“Are you sure? We could fix the shower. Father-daughter bonding.”

There’s a soggy snigger. Jim breathes a sigh of relief that Katie can still be cheered up by her father’s old methods of distraction from the main point, which is clearly that Katie has done something stupid that she thoroughly regrets. He can hear her sniffing. She’s as pig-headedly stubborn and downright dumb as she was when she was seventeen and refused to go to prom. He shuffles through a few e-mails on his laptop, and finds the relevant one in a private folder.

“Why’d you call, Katie?”

“I don’t know what to do.”

That’s a first. Katie asking her dad for advice? He’d need to get out the pre-K photos to remember what she looked like the last time that happened. Jim becomes aware that the sniffing has stopped, but Katie is now quite definitely crying. Admittedly, he only knows that _because_ he’s her dad. Nobody else alive would ever know. “Katie, if you’re this upset you’ve got it wrong. You’re the only one who can fix it.   Take it from me, the longer you wait to try the worse it will be. Like my sink.”

“What if I can’t?”

“Like your mother used to say, life never delivers anything you can’t handle. You’ll pick yourself up and move on.”

He has to be brisk and breezy with her. As a parent, he wants to go round and hug his daughter as he used to when she was a child, despite her height and age. On the other hand, Katie has never responded well to being told what to do and even though she is asking for advice he is not going to tell her that his opinion is that she should have called Richard Castle instead of him. She’ll just find reasons why that’s a bad idea. In the space of time while he’s waiting, the sniffing seems to have stopped.

“But what if…” she trails off.

“Well, I think Beckett & Beckett, Plumbers has a nice ring to it.”

“You’re not helping, Dad.”

“I can’t help you here, Katie,” he says seriously. “You’ve got to decide what to do. Whatever it is, you can deal with it. You’ve never failed at anything you’ve set your mind to, and you’re not going to fail now.”

“Thanks, Dad. Love you.”

“Love you too, Katie-bug.”

Beckett swipes off her phone, blows her nose, and does what she’s always done when she needs to clear her tangled head and tormented thoughts: changes, puts her gun very obviously on her hip and goes out into the night, running in the darkness.


	43. Life after death

“Rick Castle.”

“Mr Castle. Jim Beckett. Katie’s father. You don’t know me. Yet.”

No, he doesn’t. And this does not sound good at all.

“Yes?” Castle doesn’t feel like being encouraging. In other circumstances, he would have liked to meet Jim Beckett, but that’s gone by the wayside an hour and more ago.

“Katie will shoot me for this.” That makes two of them to be shot. If Beckett can be bothered to waste a bullet on him.

“Why are you calling me?” He doesn’t take any trouble even to try to make that pleasant.

“Well,” Jim drawls, “I _could_ say that it’s because you upset my little girl and I wanted to warn you that I’m at your door with a shotgun.”

“And we could end this pointless conversation right now. Goodnight, Mr Beckett.”

“Katie’s likely going to call you.” Jim says quickly.

“What?”

“That’s better. I think I might like you, Mr Castle. After all, you’ve done something no-one’s done in years.”

“Uh?”

“Katie asked her dear ol’ dad for advice because she thinks she’s got something wrong. Seems that would be about you.” There’s a short gap while Castle tries to get his brain unscrambled.  

“Now, in case you hadn’t worked it out, my daughter is as pig-headed as they come. So when she calls you, if you still want to make something of this, take the call, or you’ll never get another opportunity. Night, Mr Castle.”

Castle’s left staring at a cut connection. He’s still staring uncomprehendingly at it ten minutes later, not even wondering how Beckett’s father obtained his private number, when a text chirps.

 _Gold. I love you. Please_.

He stares at that, too, utterly astonished.

* * *

She’s back down on the Lower East Side, walking slowly up on to the bridge, looking at the slow drift of the river towards the sea, only visible in the rippling of the dirty orange light. She leans on the rail and watches it without need for thought, stretching her hamstrings. All the way down, through the dark streets and lit up office blocks, her thoughts have cycled round two matters: _he says he loves me_ and, at least five times more often, _I’ve screwed it up_.

The only question now is: is she brave enough to take the risk to fix it, to face the possibility of failure? To meet with triumph and disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same? Her father’s words ring in her ears: _you can deal with it. You’ve never failed at anything you set your mind to_.

 _If only you knew, Dad_. _If only you knew_. But her father had been right. It won’t get better for waiting.

She taps out a text, terrified of what she has to say in plain words to have any hope at all of fixing this, and waits to see whether there will be any answer. And waits, looking down into the dark, and waits.

Finally, she turns away from the water, and turns for home. She’s failed.

She’s looping round City Hall, heading north on Broadway, when her phone rings. She stops instantly, heart thudding.

“Beckett.”

There’s a short silence after she answers, the noise of people and traffic rushing by her.

“Where are you?”

“Broadway and Warren,” she says quietly, full of relief.

“You’re running in the dark again.” There’s an ominous sigh down the phone. “I’ll collect you at Broadway and Canal Street. I’ll be waiting for you at the First National building, kitten.”

She starts to run again, heading for the intersection, already more secure from simply the deep, sure voice, his smooth, untroubled confidence that he has the right to state that he will come and collect her, gather her in and take her home; that he can still call her kitten and let it say everything.

Castle had taken some several moments to consider how to play this, rather than instantly responding. There is no question that she has come to him. She couldn’t have been more obvious about it. She’s made her choice, and it’s him, and all that that means. He hadn’t been at all sure of that, though he has to admit her father’s call – and what was that really about? Because he’s fairly sure that there had been some classic Beckett subtext in there, even if it was Mr Beckett not Detective Beckett – had helped.

He suspects quite strongly, from the timing, that Beckett had taken off running into the dark and only then decided what she was going to do, and he knows that, having _finally_ decided, when she comes out of the dark she’s going to crash. So it’s going to be right into his arms. She needs some security, reassurance that she’s safe with him, that she can’t fail. Back to protection. But he needs to get this right, to walk a little warily around this odd insecurity, to reassure her that together they can make this work, now they both know how the other feels.

And on that note he knows what to do. He just has to take her home, and tuck her into him, and be what she needs. And what she needs is someone else who’ll let her stop having to take control. Outside work, of course. Only ever outside work. But if they can sort this outside work, it is pretty certain that she will be entirely back to her normal self in work.

He picks up a cab immediately – for speed: he needs to be there before her and though it’s a pretty short walk she will be running and he is not. They’ll go back to hers, that being a practical solution tonight, but he has a few days more before his family reappears and tomorrow may well be a very different matter. They can work that out later. It really does not make much difference to tonight. Nothing matters tonight, except the truth of how they feel.

He’s leaning on the wall of the First National City Bank of New York building, for once not admiring the Art Deco look, a half-delineated shadow in the seedy end of Broadway and Canal Street: big, broad and dangerous in the dingy gloom of the streetlights. No-one gives him a second glance as he lounges against the stone. A moment later she comes up Broadway, slowing up and with her gun very obvious; looking around for him, he hopes, cop eyes seeing everything. She’s breathing just a fraction harder, tendrils of hair stuck to her neck and forehead from running.

“I’ve found a stray Kat,” he says softly. “Looks like she’s trying to find home.” She spins to his voice, comes to him as he extends an arm to catch her in, pulls her against him to hold her tightly and kisses her searchingly, hidden there in the shadows: no one to notice or care about a big man in dark clothes kissing his girl. When he lifts from her he doesn’t let go, the gentle touch around her neck an affirmation, her soft sigh and hand rising to grip his shirt a confirmation.

“If you hadn’t slipped your collar,” he growls darkly, “you wouldn’t have got lost, but I’ve found you now. It’s all going to be okay.” She nestles closer, head against his shoulder, not resisting his grasp. “Time to go home. I’ll take care of everything.” She merely nods against him, utterly relieved and content that he is there and holding her safe. He seems to know what to do, where, again, she has no clue and is too tired to worry about it.

Castle locates and stops a stray cab with one commanding gesture and installs Beckett without ever losing contact with her. As soon as he is inside and the door shut he gives the driver Beckett’s address, to which she doesn’t react at all, drops an arm around her slim shoulders and ensures that she is wholly tucked in. He’s fairly sure she’s already crashing, exhaustion and the adrenaline cliff from this evening hitting her with a vengeance, and it’s confirmed when she makes a tiny little tired noise and turns into him. He doesn’t try to talk to her now: serious discussion is not for tonight. All she needs to know is that he’s here, and she’s here, and they’re together.

As soon as they’re in her apartment – she’d had to unlock the door, and it had taken more than one attempt before she’d managed it, but he hadn’t tried to do it for her – he simply swings her up, plants them both on the couch, and cuddles her into him: his exhausted kitten soft in his lap, wrapped in his arms, head on his shoulder, as cuddlesome as he’d wanted; protected and petted. Not entirely relaxed, though. Not that. But that, as so much, will wait until tomorrow.

“Sleep,” she yawns after a while, and wakes up enough to realise she’s still sticky and sweaty from her run. “I need to wash,” she murmurs, “before bedtime,” but promptly emits an unhappy noise at needing to move, half asleep and mostly curled up.

“C’mon, then.” When she still doesn’t move he unfurls her from him, stands himself and lifts her again, repatriating her to the bathroom and sitting her on the edge of the bath.

“Shower or bath?”

“Shower.” Castle looks sidelong at her. “Alone.” She nearly smiles, split by another jaw-breaking yawn. “ ‘M tired.”

A few minutes later she’s in bed, in those dreadful pyjamas, automatically curling round a plump pillow.

“Uh-uh, kitten. Come here.” Castle untangles her from the pillow and re-tangles her over his broad frame, an arm under her, her head pillowed over the slow beat of his heart. “You belong right here, safe with me. I’m not letting you run away again.” There’s a barely audible whisper of _keep me safe, Castle_. When he squints down his front at her he thinks she’s already asleep. Shortly, he follows her. Tomorrow will be time enough to play, time enough to talk.

Castle wakes first, noticing that he still has an armful of Beckett, which is very encouraging. He slides out of bed to attend to a few necessities and put on the kettle, and then slides back in. The only indication that she’s woken and noticed he’d been gone is a somnolent snuggle and a small squeak of contentment when she’s nestled in again. He simply enjoys holding her, petting her hair and occasionally stroking her lean lines, until she wakes, some time later. He doesn’t expect he’ll be first to wake very often, in future, so he appreciates it while he can.

Beckett wakes up warm, cosy and wrapped up like a parcel. It’s delightful – right up till she remembers _all_ of last night. Specifically, the shattering row, running in the dark, and then – the good bit – Castle being there to catch her before she fell. But now…. Now she’s tense, already unhappy: he’d walked out last night because she couldn’t believe him straight away and how can he forgive her? Insecurity nibbles at her with sharp rat teeth, and she turns away.

“No running, kitten, or I’ll put a leash on you right now. You’re mine. My Kat, my Beckett. I’m not letting you get lost again.” Beckett can hear the edge of – something, maybe irritation, maybe frustration, maybe upset – beneath the smooth definitive baritone, and tries to bury herself out of view in her heap of soft pillows. “Come here.” He plucks her out of her hiding place and rolls her over, rising up on an elbow and looming over her. He frowns downward. “I still don’t like those pyjamas,” he murmurs darkly, “and I don’t like you hiding from me.” He places the tip of his index finger very precisely at the vee of her pyjama top. She takes a deep breath. A sleepy, leonine smile appears. “Don’t hide from me. Don’t run away.”

Clearly hiding is not an available option. It occurs to Beckett that the edge underlying his voice wasn’t any of her first thoughts, but was much closer to worry cut with determination. She relaxes fractionally.

“There’s nothing wrong with my pyjamas,” she says a little crossly.

“Nothing at all – if you live in an igloo, or” – his voice slinks into her ears and strokes down her nerves – “if they were on the floor.” He undoes the top button, and places his fingertip back down at the new apex of the vee, directly in the centre of her cleavage. His mind appears to wander down a different trail. “Why d’you only have cream linens?”

What on earth does her choice of bedlinen have to do with anything?

“I like it. Everything matches.” She doesn’t mention its calming, soothing qualities. Castle produces a very sceptical look.

“Really? I thought” – his voice takes another turn into syrupy sensuality – “it might be to set you off. Dark hair on the pillows; dark eyes with a come-on look in them; full, crimson lips a little open.” His fingertip traces its way back up from her sternum to her lips, slowly and meaningfully, runs across the seam, presses a little inward. Her lips quirk a little, but nothing more. The finger wends its way back down to its resting place. “Of course, if you’re going to have plain linen then the contents of the linen” – he smiles in a predatory fashion that makes it perfectly plain that she is the contents – “need to be decorated.”

She’s just softening under the gently dominant tone and posture, when he apparently spots a different trail, again, to run down.

“It’s Saturday, Beckett, and you’re not on shift. Are you?”

“No.”

“Good. You’re not going to sneak into the precinct, then.” That is definitely a command. “I’m sure we can find a way to fill the time.” That comes with a wolfish expression and a small movement of the fingertip between her breasts. “What about tonight?”

“Uh?”

“Had you any plans for tonight? Fixing sinks or faucets, perhaps?” He smirks evilly.

“No,” she says slowly, still somewhat tense, now also confused. Castle’s face returns to possessively predatory.

“Good. I’ve got plans for us.”   There’s a short silence. “Don’t you want to know what they are?” More silence. “Kitten? Beckett? Talk to me.”

Beckett rolls away and out of bed, flexibly landing on her feet, just like a fleeing cat.

“Why are you still here?” She isn’t looking at him, she’s looking at her toes, and therefore misses Castle’s wince. “Why did you even come to get me last night? You walked out because I didn’t answer you. Because I didn’t say anything back. Why’d you even answer the text?”

“Because you told me the truth, and asked me to come for you. I said I’d be there any time you asked.” He puts a strong emphasis on _you asked_. “If you hadn’t asked I wouldn’t have.” He pauses. “You’d used your safe word. I said that would always work, no matter what. So even though I thought you needed me you’d safe worded. So it was up to you to make your move.” He shrugs, as if that’s it.

“But…” She still isn’t looking at him. “But I thought…”

“Thought what?” He prowls closer.

“You’d only said you wanted a pet and I couldn’t do it. It didn’t matter how good it was, it was just another dead end. The case, you, my whole life was a dead end. If I couldn’t solve the case at least I could stop going down one blind alley.” She’s staring out the bedroom window, turned away, pulled tightly into herself. “I couldn’t do anything right.” A short silence falls. “And then I found I’d got that wrong too.”

Castle correctly interprets the last sentence to mean that Beckett had had absolutely no idea what he felt for her until last night. How can he, a _writer_ , for God’s sake, have been so clumsy in his words to her?

“You can’t know something I didn’t tell you.”

“I’m a cop. We’re supposed to be able to read between the lines.” Her words spill out, chill and defeated. “Couldn’t do that, either.”

Castle’s patience snaps. “You’re not telepathic, whatever you think you should be. I should have said what I meant. I don’t want a dead-end relationship either. Neither of us needs to change. You weren’t going to change who you are and that’s fine. Who you _are_ , Beckett. Whether that’s kickass at work or kitten here, you’re both. I love _both_. I don’t want you to change who you are. I only want you to _be_ who you are, with me.”

He stops, takes a calming breath, and steps up close to her.   “We’re going to start tonight. I’m going to take you for dinner, and dancing, just like we talked about. Just like any couple might. We’re going to have an evening out. We’ve got three weeks before Alexis is back for the new semester and Mother won’t come back from the Hamptons till then either. It’s just us, with time to sort this out.” He brings her round, and his arms close around her. “You’re my kitten, and you’re my badass Beckett, and you’re mine anywhere in between.”

He kisses her till she has no words left, no arguments, soft and melting under his avid, possessive mouth, his hands pressing her tightly into him: taking and owning her and pouring out all his feelings in his touch. His hands slide under her pyjama shirt, smoothing over the silky skin.

“My kitten. Mine to keep safe, and play with. Mine to touch and pet and stroke.” His fingers press a little more provocatively. “Mine to kiss.” He does, searching her mouth and taking ownership, hands running over her, and she arches against him and flows bonelessly over him and lets her own control dissolve in his. He pulls them back down on to the bed and glides fingers over her back until she’s purring contentedly and curving into the soft touch, quite definitely relaxed now. So is he, the fretful, furious frustration of yesterday and earlier wholly dissipated. “Mine to love.”

He stretches her out and leans over her, resting his finger again at the vee of her shirt. “I don’t like them,” he reiterates. “You shouldn’t be wearing them. You bought pretty underwear: surely you bought some prettier nightwear?” She shakes her head.

“I like these.” But she doesn’t sound wedded to them at all. She sounds, in fact, mischievously provoking.

“Do you?” Castle growls. “More than you like this?” His finger wanders from vee to circle her breast, and acquires the company of the rest of his large hand as it does. He plays and teases a little.   His kitten wriggles and flexes under his touch, making a move towards the buttons. “Uh-uh, kitten. Only what I give you. And since you like your pyjamas so much, they’re staying on.” She makes a very cross noise as he holds her hands in one of his, above her head, and pins her legs by laying one hard thigh over them. Then he expends significant effort into turning her into a melting, squirming mess, mewling and then moaning.

“Please. Please, I want you.”

Castle plays some more, carefully judging his actions to have most effect and leave Kat desperate.

“Do you? I thought you wanted the pyjamas.”

“The – _ohhh please_ – hell with the – _please_ – pyjamas. _Please_.”

“Are you mine, Beckett?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to stay, kitten?”

“ _Yes_. Please, let me come. Please.”

He strips off the offending pyjamas and drops them on the floor.

“I’ll deal with them – and you – properly later, kitten,” he rasps. “After we’ve been dancing. Now, I’m just going to love you, Beckett.” And then he stops talking about pyjamas and rises over her naked, open body and slides home. No more games, just his possession and her accession.

Perfectly right.


	44. Free my soul

Much later in the afternoon Beckett peruses her dresses and tries to decide which would be best. Castle had left, telling her not to wear jewellery because he’d have her matching necklace and bracelets: he’d collect her at seven for dinner at half-past.

Finally, she puts on soft ivory silk underwear, sheer black stockings, and the cherry-red dress he’d bought her, sits calmly and waits for him to arrive, a small black purse beside her. When he arrives, clad in dark dress pants and shirt, he raises an eyebrow.

“My dress, kitten?” She nods, suddenly as unsure as the moment she’d put on his collar to go to dinner at the loft. Maybe she should have chosen the crimson silk in which they’d first become… acquainted. He smiles ferally. “Good girl. That’s what I hoped you’d wear.” He raises her up, extracts collar and cuffs from his pocket, and puts them on her. “Mine. No-one but us will ever know it’s not a necklace and bracelets.”

His smile changes to marginally more mischievous, eyes twinkling suddenly. “But I couldn’t resist these.” He delves into his pockets again, and opens his fist to reveal a pair of earrings: two small links of silvery chain with a little rhinestone – she thinks it’s silver and rhinestone, with a tiny green glass dot for an eye – cat attached, tiny, delicate, discreet and stylishly humorous. “Our private joke,” he says happily. She smiles in return.

“Where’d you find these?”

“I know a guy…”

“Mmmm?” she hums, and puts them in at the mirror, turning her head to admire them.

“He makes jewellery. I met him when I was writing Clara Strike for Storm. It was interesting, so I asked him about it, and he let me watch for a while.”

Beckett recognises Castle in full curious mode, and rapidly comes to the conclusion that the poor jeweller had been grilled harder than a melt from Murray’s Cheese.

“They’re pretty,” she says with kittenish satisfaction, twists around and kisses him. “Thank you.”

Castle smiles back. He has no intention at all of telling her that they’re real: platinum, small diamond chips, and an emerald eye. She’d only argue about it, and while he’s fairly sure he’d win in the end, he doesn’t see the point of an unnecessary fight. They hadn’t been at all expensive, by his standards, and in fact he’d judged it very carefully so that she wouldn’t work out they were real for some time, if at all. If he wants to give his Kat presents, he will. There had been some other very pretty items indeed, but a two-carat cat’s eye ring, while amusingly apt, simply wouldn’t have suited Beckett’s fingers – or indeed fitted easily through the trigger of a Glock; and the other items couldn’t have been passed off as costume jewellery.

“There,” he says with satisfaction. “Let’s have a look at both of us.” He steers her round the bedroom with a hand on her back and positions the pair of them so that they’re reflected in the full-length mirror. “Yes. Perfect. The red and the black.”

“I really hope not, Castle. Unless you’re planning a self-sacrificing, tragic end?”

“You’ve _read_ that?” Beckett nods. Castle regards her with unalloyed admiration, and then kisses her hard until she’s breathless. “You are amazing.” He kisses her again, much more slowly and seductively. “But now it’s time to go, kitten. Dinner, and dancing. I’ll lead, and you’ll accept it, and be very, very happy with it.” He extends an arm, and she takes it, falling into the spell of the evening.

At dinner, conversation is light, and restricted to socially acceptable topics. The car… had been an entirely different matter. Castle had placed an arm around her immediately, just enough force to let her know that curving in was not optional, and had proceeded to purr into her ear all the way to the restaurant, without otherwise touching her. _I own you_ had only been the start. “Next time, I’ll dress you,” he’d said. “Panties won’t be part of that. I know you’re wearing them tonight, but we’ll discuss that naughtiness later _._ ” She’d been instantly damp, wriggled a little, and he’d held her still in the crook of his arm and murmured darkly in her ear until the car stopped. Then he’d growled deeply, “Are you ready?” and she doesn’t think that he’d meant for dinner. _As_ dinner, possibly.

Conversation may have been socially acceptable, but every so often Castle had stroked her hand, drawn little circles around her palm, patterns that he’s used in other ways, in other places, other times. She is wholly conscious of the look in his eyes, the restrained force behind his occasional touches, the power in his body. Anticipation is rising in her blood and veins, driving her higher, as he had predicted months ago, telling her this story – and she is certain that he hasn’t forgotten a word of the story he’d trapped her in, the first time after he’d shown up on a murder case; back in a dark, secretive club in a dingy, seedy street.

And now dinner is done, and they’ve come to an elegant, sophisticated dance parlour where waltzing is the order of the evening. The floor is busy without being crowded, women in elegant dresses and men in smart clothes, swooping and swirling to the live orchestral music under the soft light. Castle extends his hand.

“Would you like to dance, Miss Beckett?”

“My pleasure, Mr Castle.” She peeps flirtatiously through long lashes, and smiles seductively.

“It will be,” he murmurs, like water through gravel traps. “You’re already thinking about it.” He puts a hand on her back, takes her hand as her other moves to his shoulder in classical waltz position, and sweeps her on to the dance floor. Two steps in he’s caught her against his broad chest, his hand across her back spread wide, fingers spanning from the small of her back to her shoulder blades. A little lower than classical ballroom would expect, to be sure, but she really does not mind that. Nor does she mind the taut muscles of his thighs or the strength twirling her around the floor. She flows over him, and relaxes into the comfort of knowing that she need decide nothing, simply follow his lead. He is, she notes, an excellent dancer. For now, he’s not murmuring any more.

Three dances later, Castle directs them back to a discreet table in a quiet, dim corner where a bottle of chilled white wine and two glasses are mysteriously already present. This table is set catty-corner, not opposite each other.

“You dance well, kitten. We fit together just perfectly, don’t we?” He pours the wine, and lifts his glass. “To crime-fighters and Kats.”

“Authors and owners,” she replies, and shivers sensually at the hot look in his eyes, nibbling her lip.

“In a minute we can dance some more. For now, we’ll just sit here and share the wine.” He moves a little closer, looms a little, bigger and more dangerous. His hand rests on her knee, hidden by the tablecloth and the dim light. “Hands on the table, kitten.” One slips round the stem of the wine glass, one resting almost casually beside it. “Good girl. We match each other beautifully, dressed for dinner and dancing in a smart establishment.” His voice drops, slinking over her and collecting somewhat north of his hand. “Later, you’ll fit perfectly by me and with me and into me. Just like you fit perfectly against me when we’re dancing, head on my shoulder, pressed into me, right where you want to be. You like it when I’m leading, strong arms around you, nothing for you to do but follow and lean on me. You’ll always be able to lean on me.”

His hand moves a little higher, fingers spreading across her leg. She breathes in, a little surprise, a little lust, complete acceptance as she shifts a fraction closer. “I love knowing that I can do this for you: turn you from tiger to kitten with words. Knowing that you’ll spend all day demolishing bad guys and lowlifes with one fell glare and a raised eyebrow – and a Glock – but when you come home, when the case is finished, you’ll simply want to let go and give in. Mine, just like now. My pet, my kitten-Kat.” His touch moves a little higher, the tips of his fingers dangerously close to indecency, sliding the cherry fabric an inch left, an inch right.

“Ah,” he breathes. “Tell me what you’re wearing, kitten, under your pretty dress?”

“Stockings,” she murmurs silkily.

“Stockings, hmmm?” His flexible fingers rub gently, till she emits a quiet mew. “And?”

“Ivory,” she husks.

“Mmmmm, delicious.” The words fall unctuously from his tongue. She wriggles. “Even if you are wearing one item too many. Still, we’ll talk about that later.” His hand flickers briefly upward and then returns to the table, twining over hers. “More wine? Or more dancing?” There’s a very tiny hesitation, and Castle realises that choices are not what his Kat wants. “Dancing, then. The wine will wait.”

He rises, extends a hand meaningfully, and swishes her back on to the dance floor, this time not even pretending to start with a classical hold. He brings her close in, lays his hand across the small of her back, and folds her right arm in to tuck her against his body. She feels so very right, soft against him, and when she leans her head on his shoulder and relaxes completely, trusting him to steer and lead and keep her safe, he feels that he could simply cradle her there forever.

Some while later, the wine drunk, the last dance danced, Beckett excuses herself before the journey home, and returns with a smooth, feline slink, lip-gloss reapplied, and a slightly guileful air, matched by a part-sly, part-sensuous smile, though there’s an air of uncertainty under that. Castle doesn’t ask. He doesn’t think he needs to, because he recognises the slight uncertainty from the night she came to dinner wearing his necklace. He intends to confirm his deductions, but she won’t be telling him in words. There won’t be words from her, once they’ve left this place, until they get home.

The car is waiting outside, a luxurious sedan with – among other less relevant extras – a privacy screen. In the dark, that’s just fine. Still, no point in attracting attention.

“I know what you did back there,” Castle murmurs. “Now, no noise, kitten. Not a sound, till we get home.” He opens the car door for her and waits while she settles herself, then gives the driver his address. His kitten looks a fraction surprised. “My place. No-one’s home, no-one’s going to be home. Just us.” He establishes himself beside her, dropping his arm around her shoulders so that his mouth is by her ear. He can feel a little tension in her, a little fretting. “You’re just as you should be, now. Naked and open to me, and you did it without me telling you to. Clever kitten.” He strokes her hair gently, sensing her relax into his words and the game, falling into the spell of his words and dominance in the way she wants to and needs to and will always be able to; forever and ever as long as they both shall live. “The question is, am I going to give you anything you want, or am I going to make you wait and wonder? So many choices, and all of them mine.”

He rests a hand on her arm, the other on her knee, over the material of her dress. “Give me your hands, kitten.” They arrive neatly in his, as asked, and his thumb strokes gently over them. He leans closer, and nibbles gently at her ear, following up with a flick of tongue over the nerves behind it. She opens the arch of her neck to him, and sighs almost inaudibly.

For the rest of the short ride Castle’s hands don’t move an inch. Every so often he kisses Beckett. He does nothing else at all. He doesn’t talk, touch, or insinuate. Even the kisses are light, brief, and delicate.

He doesn’t do anything untoward in the elevator. One arm stays around her, but that’s it, apart from a single smoothing down of the skirt of her dress followed by a wolfishly quirked eyebrow.

He doesn’t do anything when he opens the door and ushers her in, politely. She had, by this stage, expected him to fall upon her with roughness and command – anticipated it more with every second he _hadn’t_ laid a finger on her, and now she’s hopelessly aroused by what he _hasn’t_ done. Still he does nothing, leads her to the couch and sits her down, lands next to her and curls her into his arm.

“You wanted me to keep you, kitten. Keep you safe in the dark. Is that still what you want?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll take care of you, when it’s all too much. Just the way you like it. You need me. Just like I need you. Is that what you want?”

“Yes.”

“You’re mine. Always mine. Whether I’m following you when you’re kicking ass at the precinct as Beckett or you’re kneeling naked by me as my kitten, you’re mine.”

“Yes,” she breathes, and then, “as long as you’re mine too.”

“Yes,” he answers. “Yours, too.”

She delicately stretches up, undoes the catch of her dress and flexes bonelessly to undo the zip. By the time she’s pulled it down, his shirt is open and when she stands, drops it and her bra to the floor and makes to kneel, he pulls her back on to his lap and cuddles her against his chest and tells her that _tonight_ he is keeping his kitten in his lap where she can, if he so pleases, be stroked and petted and cosseted for as long as he likes, since she’d been less than pettable for a little while. Which, he tells her, was also naughty. Kittens, he carries on, are supposed to be soft and cuddly, at times.

All the time, he strokes her in completely neutral areas. He whispers in her ear exactly what he might be doing, and isn’t. Every second of it, he induces her to think that he might do some of it _right now dammit_ and doesn’t. It’s the most erotic non-sexual touching she’s ever experienced and it is _not fair_.

He has, it is very clear, discovered how to stroke every single one of her nerve endings without actually touching any of them, and – just like the very first time, way back when it was a _one-time thing_ , way back on a January night – his words are leaving her wet, wanton and whimpering, desperate for him to back it up with touch. He’d first seduced her with words and barely a touch, and here he is doing it all over again. The combination of the soft, deep, dominating voice and the utterly erotic suggestions as to how he’ll handle, take, touch and tease her are lodged between her legs. The small muscles of her core are fluttering. Every so often he tells her not to come, that he’ll know if she does, that if she does he’ll have to take measures to teach her better obedience.

By the time he _finally_ picks her up, carries her through his bedroom door, which is really not that far, and spreads her out across the bed, she’s implanted her teeth in her lip and is close to drawing blood with the effort of not coming. The slight pain is really not effective against the overwhelming arousal drumming through her veins and pulsing in every part of her. She almost loses it when he raises her arms above her head and restrains her hands, leans over her and murmurs _now you’re all mine, now you’ll come for me_.

And then he proves it. Everything he’d purred or whispered or murmured, everything she’d imagined from his words, everything she needs and wants is in his touch and kiss and body. In the end, they’re wrapped together, his hand holding the leash and lying between her breasts, spooned in.

“We fit,” he rumbles into her neck.

“Mmmm,” is all she manages, and snuggles against him more comfortably. “Mine,” she adds possessively after a minute.

“Yours? You’re my Kat.”

Beckett acquires a very feline expression, and stretches luxuriously against him.

“Oh, Castle. Don’t you know you can’t own a cat? They own you.”

* * *

**_S_ ** **_ome unspecified time period, but many months, later…_ **

“I don’t like this collar as much any more,” Castle says lazily, as they finish dinner and repair to the couch in Beckett’s apartment for coffee. Beckett raises an eyebrow and then smiles mischievously.

“I do,” she says. She bats eyelashes at him. “Are you going to tell me you don’t own me any more? That I need to find a new Kat-lover?”

Castle scowls at her. “Naughty kitten. No. You’re mine. I still own you.” He kisses her possessively. “I’ll prove it, later.”

“So why don’t you like _my_ collar? I like it.” She rubs sensuously against him. There’s a short pause while verbal proceedings are replaced by some petting and stroking.

“I think you need a new one.”

He slips off the couch. Beckett-now-thoroughly-kitten mews crossly at him. “Where are you going?”

“I got you a different one.”

He disappears and shortly reappears with a box.

“Show me, please?”

“Kitten… Beckett…” He takes her hands, looking a little uncertain. “I said I’d keep you. I meant it.” There’s a tiny tremor in his grip. “Kitten, if you want this one, it means you’re mine forever. Katherine Beckett – will you marry me?” Her face splits into a smile of unconfined joy, she nods, wordless, and then simply kisses him as he slides the ring on to her finger. A little while later they resurface.

“You haven’t actually answered in words, Beckett,” Castle says jokingly. His kitten smiles very naughtily.

“Miaow.”

**Fin.**

 

 

 


End file.
